Where might one find a vender that sell cockpit brace for the thighs? NRS carries pads, local kayak store was unable to provide any leads. Search on the internet has been futile using the term thigh and knee brace. I would be grateful for recommendations. Both of my kayaks lack a firm place to lock in the thighs.
Thanks, Mark
What boats do you have?
Some manufacturers have kits for thigh braces that are intended to be retrofitted. Some boats may be in the category of being able to accept the modification but it won’t deliver much benefit to the paddler even with thigh braces because of their fit in the cockpit.
So hence the question - what are the boats and what’s your fit in them?
Prijon and Falcon
Appreciate the question and web link. Own an unknown yard sale plastic boat that is several years old. Best guess from SME’s is that it is an old Prijon. It is 12’long with no markings or serial numbers, no bulk heads and a very small cockpit that my butt and thighs fail to lock in during a sweep roll attempt.
Falcon (Eddyline) is ok but my scrawny legs, more thigh padding might help.
Where does one purchase the closed foam padding? Mark
Where to get
You can get minicell from most any kayak shop as well as online companies like NRS (http://www.nrsweb.com), as well as pre-cut foam blocks for thigh braces and hip pads if you look around the whitewater side of kayak outfitters. You just shape the latter down as needed. Because the shipping fee tends to be obnoxious for a such a lightweight object, you may be best off finding a kayak shop to buy from. Your best bet will be a place that is strong in whitewater - lotso minicell padding involved there.
I’d suggest a call to Prijon. I know they had kits for adding stuff in some of their older boats - they might have something lying around that’d work and be easier than cutting your own.
As to Eddyline, last I knew you’ll need to cut some foam. I’ve had the same problem with a lot of their boats - the thigh brace shape exists but the darn things are just a flat shape with more glide than grab. But I think a couple of WW thigh braces will fix that up. BTW, one of the Falcons is one of theirs I like much better.
One other idea is see if you can take the boats by a WW shop and ask if any of the WW thigh braces intended for add-on would work. A few companies make them and they often work across different product lines.
Finally, as to the benefit you’ll get, it is possible that the problem in the Prijon is as much about volume as fit. At a certain point of the boat being over-volume for the paddler, or too wide, it just isn’t going to come up unless your roll is quite well advanced and you know how to lean like heck on the paddle without having it mess you up. The first thing that happens when that problem occurs is that you slide out of the thigh holds, because you have done as much as you can to lift the boat and it’s just not going. The boat ain’t gonna move, so your body does.
I’d suggest that you check in with someone about the volume issue, and confirm if that is part of what is going on in either of these boats. If that’s the case, you should probably find another boat to learn the roll in and then consider how much work you want to put into each of your current boats. That kind of issue will affect sculling and a lot of other manuvers as well. You can pick up old school WW boats fairly cheaply, or often even borrow one if there is a club doing sessions, and they tend to be great for learning a roll.