royalex Wildfire? http://www.wenonah.com/craftsmanship/composite_canoes_seats_trim.php
Has anyone installed the Wenonah adjustable height and angle seat bracket in a royalex Bell Wildfire or Yellowstone Solo?
Can the Wenonah brackets even be installed in the RX Wildfire?
If they could, would it be of any benefit?
I have a royalex Wildfire and haven't found a preferred seating system that allows sitting most of the time and also allows reasonably easy and safe transition to kneeling. The stock postion of the Wildfire is a little too high for stable sitting position in challenging moving water (even with foot brace) and too low to easily and safely transition from sitting to kneeling and visa versa when river conditions change quickly. I have no desire to paddle barefoot or wear thin neoprene socks or booties to be able to safely extract my feet from under a seat. I often wear my Chota Quicklace mukluks or Neos overshoes over my work shoes and like to have plenty of clearance to move my feet easily when transitioning from sitting to kneeling.
A proper pedestal seems the best option, and I may go that route sometime, but until then, would the Wenonah adjustable brackets assist with relatively easy transition from sitting to kneeling with reduced likelihood of getting feet stuck under the seat.
The set up I've liked the best is the one that came stock in my Mad River Slipper with Carbonlite 2000 lay up. It was like a pedestal tractor seat with adjustable tilt that was easy to operated while on the water and the feet slide easily along the sides of the seat with no concern for entangling the feet. This set up is no longer available, but some day, I may try to conjure a similar set up for my RX Wildfire, unless I trade in my Wildfire for an RX Vagabond.
I really don't enjoy paddling the RX Wildfire with it's stock set up.
Any suggestions are appreciated.
picture of the Mad River set up
Do you have a picture of the Mad River set up. When I got my Yellowstone solo, the seat was too low for kneeling. I raised it for easy egress but now the seat is too high for comfortable sitting. I tried to get an adjustable tractor seat set up but was unable to imagine one that I could successfully make. I’d like to see the Mad River one in order to know if I could make something similar.
I emailed a picture to Eric_Nyre for his
web site and also sent you an email, which you can respond to so I can email a picture to you. It’s the only picture I have, but I’ll try to get a couple more in the next few days.
One word of caution
I designed this seat for Wenonah and have installed it in both my Wildfire and Yellowstone canoes. As usual, Eric has it right on the money. The only caution I would mention is that if you trim the seat bracket, make sure the nut and fender washer on the back of the plate still clear the hull at the very top of their travel. The shouldered tumblehome on these boats makes that much less of a problem than on straight-sided hulls, but you still need to pay attention to it. And yes, you will need some small blocks of mini-cell to stabilize the side-to-side. Once again, take care to avoid interfering with the travel of the seat - the fender washers can catch you by surprise. One last note, be certain that you line the seat up so that both plates are DIRECTLY across from each other. Any deviation front-to-back between the plates will cause the mechanism to bind. If you have any trouble or questions, don’t hesitate to call or e-mail.
Good luck, and I hope you like the seat!
Kevin Carr
cvca@gear4portaging.com
Looks like several posts deleted from
this thread.
Who did it and why?