I have the Tsunami 145 and want to add thigh braces to the seat so that I get a more snug fit. As it is, I have probably less than 1" on either side of my butt at the seat so the fit is not bad but I want to make it more snug for more responsive handling - I’m beginning to learn to edge the boat (and roll when the water warms-up more) and I think these will help.
How would you go about making them and attaching them? The seat is mounted on plastic strips on the side, which each have one large (3"?) circular opening in the middle, where a pad can be tied to. I was also looking at using heavy duty velcro as an option to attach them to the seat side.
Also, are these available for sale? The Wilderness Systems Tempest I tried comes with them - wondering if something like these can be cheaply bought or if I can make a pair myself.
Thanks for any suggestions!
Do you mean hip pads?
...or actual thigh bracing that attaches to the coaming in the front area of the cockpit. It looks like yourÊboat comes with thigh bracing - correct? If you want to tighten up your seating area a bit, you would just glue on some closed cell or neoprene padding on each side of the seat. Exercise mats are a good material for that.
However you want about a finger thickness of space on each side of you. You want to be able to twist your body in the seat to look backwards. If you trap yourself in too tight on the hips, a lot of techniques will actually be harder to do like rolling.
If your boat lacks actual thigh bracing on the coaming, then I would contact Wilderness and see if they have something to sell you. It's not easy to make nice thigh bracing for large cockpit boats. If that's what you need and want to build post a question on:
http://www.kayakforum.com/cgi-bin/Building/index.cgi/noframes/
and you'll get a lot of responses with pictures.
If your boat is plastic, you could buy some 1/4" thick plastic sheet material and cut pieces out and attach them with bolts and nuts.ÊYou could heat them and bend them into shape and glue on padding too. That's probably the easiest way for a plastic boat.
Thanks - the seat area actually
Thanks for the clarification. The boat indeed has what you say - the pads on the coaming.
So I suppose I am looking for "hip braces" then. I am looking to to put something at the seat side, which would make contact near the seat bottom.
I guess I can take out some foam sheets out of my daughter's "learn to swim" jacket that she never used and try them -;)
I believe harmony sells them. NM
Check out WW shops/online sites
They are heavy-duty purveyors of hip pads - you’ll probably find more variety there than in general purpose kayak shops.
Make sure that you don’t end up with anything that has a slick surface between you and the hip pad. It tends to defeat the purpose if you slide around when wet…
Blue Foam Prototypes
I use the blue closed-cell sheet house insulation for carving prototypes when making hip/thigh pads - it’s cheap and easy to work, using flexible
sanding disks on a drill. When youy’ve got the design you want, you can doa final version in minicell foam if you want the best material.