Thu - January 4, 2007

Outfitting Thunderbolt Racing Kayak - Sliding or Guerney Gears Bumfortable Seat?



I have got my Thunderbolt with a sliding seat instead of a hung one. After trimming off seat hangers I can fit into cockpit. However, this seat is a quite minimalistic and not very comfortable even with a layer a foam sleeping pad. So, I was exploring alternatives and reached for my favorite kayak seat - a bumfortable foam seat from Steve Guerney, a New Zealand adventure race legend (see Guerney Gears). This seat came with my Sisson Nucleus kayak and I was happy with it for the last three years. I used it also in CLC Patuxent 19.5 and I am about to try it in my folding kayak too.

I was ready to do some trimming to the bumfortable for the narrow Thunderbolt but it fits just perfectly without any adjustments (I have a wider version of this seat). The last paddling with Thunderbolt on the South Platte I did with the bumfortable seat and I am going to install it permanently. The pictures below show a comparison of the original Thunderbolt sliding seat and the Gurney's bumfortable.

Would you like to share tips, experience, pictures of outfitting your racing kayak? Please write some comments below or send me e-mail. I would be happy to post them here.

Bumfortable science by Steve Gurney :

To make a seat comfortable over long periods we paddle in endurance races we need to reduce any pressure points. Pressure = force / area. Force is paddler's weight downwards. The area is the surface area of bum/seat interface. It stands to reason that pressure (and soreness) will be reduces if we make the area that supports the paddler's weight as large as possible. I have carefully designed the seat to do this with nice, soft, warm foam, including an extended area around hamstrings. In doing this though I have been also careful to reduce the pressure on known tender spots such as the ischial tuberositties (bum bones).

The only drawback to this large area of contact is that it tends to reduce the paddler's ability to pivot in the seat. Observe the sprint K1 paddler's seat; it is small and highly polished. This allows them to use their legs to pivot their bum on the seat, thereby adding an extra rotation to the paddle. However, they only race for a few minutes and therefore they can tolerate a relatively high pressures at the seat/bum interface.

As endurance paddlers we are forced to compromise this rotation in favour of surviving the comfort battle.

Bumfortables have soft, yet slightly slippery surface that enables some degree of rotation in the seat so paddlers can get the best of both worlds.

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Posted at 05:57 PM    


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