Wenonah Prism

Hello: I purchased a Wenonah Prism last fall and would like your recommendations on changing out the sliding tractor seat. I don’t particularly care for sitting all the time in that position and would rather kneel. A kneeling thwart or saddle would be more to my liking. Or perhaps a smaller pad attached to the sliding frameworks. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Other than the seat problem I love the boat.

Thanks, Tony

Prism Seat
I have an Advantage with the same pedestal seat. I rather like it for all day comfort and IF I happen to find myself in big waves (boat chop here) I can always drop to my knees without much effort for a bit more stability. I once took a Prism into Wabikimi Park that had a pedestal seat and I glued in some minicell knee pads so I could kneel in mild rapids, etc. If you haven’t installed one yet, do think about putting a foot brace in your boat. You will be better able to brace from the tractor seat with one installed as well as being able to extract a little more performance from the boat. If you’ve never used a foot brace you will wonder how you lived without one after trying it. You may also like the tractor seat better. The really big benifit of the tractor seat is that you can easily trim the boat by moving the seat. And if I recall proper trim on a loaded Prism was key to getting it to go where you wanted it to. The boat was all over the place till I worked out the load and seat trim on my trip, then it went like a rocket, in the direction I wanted it to. Overall I’d keep the pedestal and learn to kneel around it, and IF you aren’t using a foot brace DO install one. Also, We-No-Nah sell a peal-and-stick pad for their bucket seats. Get one and your buns will love you, makes a BIG difference. The combo of brace and pedestal is a good one! Good luck!

Don’t like tractor seat either
I don’t like a tractor seat either, and I ordered my Prism with a web seat. It’s still too low, however, for me to kneel with certain water shoes. I have yet to raise it, but I do wonder how it will paddle with the raised seat since the Prism isn’t that deep and I don’t know what it will do to the center of gravity.

Just some things to consider.

Prism Seat
You are right …I forgot that they switched to the big plastic bucket seat. All the pedestal seats I’ve used have the older, smaller Kevlar bucket. This older seat facilitated kneeling very well. I know they still use the smaller Kev bucket on their marathon boats, though they don’t list it on their accesory/spares list and I don’t think it’s offered as an option (Hello We-No-Nah?). To bad they stopped using the Kev seat… It always looked a little more ‘upscale’ than the plastic (cheap looking) seats too. The plastic seat looks somewhat ‘Bubba’. I also found that raising the rails in back about .5-.75" w/plastic spacers (marathon trick) gave it a better forward slope and improved the paddling position. Easy fix.

seat
Thanks fella’s: I had tried kneeling and found it a bit difficult with the big, fat tractor seat. A smaller seat may just be the ticket.

I might call my dealership and ask about the other seat you’s referred to. Thanks again, Tony

small, kevlar seat
i bought one a few months ago. just a few more dollars than the big, plastic seat. i had the big seat and bought the kevlar as a replacement. the guys at the shop even chopped it down an inch by glassing the seat onto the lower frame, instead of having two crossbars that raise the seat an inch or so. just call the shop and they’ll help you out.