Seat Pads

The way you sit in a kayak places almost all your weight on your butt, and there is little way to vary your position. In a short time you can get very sore. If your kayak has any kind of seat pad at all, it is a thin hard cruel joke that does not help in the least.

These thick neoprene foam bleacher cushions are a huge improvement over the thin pads that come with the boat ( if it even has those! ) Stack two for real comfort. Tie them to the seatback with a piece of bungie cord.

If your boat has an adjustable seat back, adjust it slightly forward of vertical. That way, when you lean on it, it will be straight and support your back the way it should.


Update:

I recently took the factory seat pad off my boat. I've come to the conclusion that it does nothing at all. I think it was just put there for looks. For whatever it is worth, I now sit a half inch lower in the boat. I also took the sun-beaten pad off the backrest, and don't miss it at all.


I recently installed these aluminum seat strap buckles. They are a direct replacement for the factory plastic buckles.

The swiveling part of the plastic buckles broke years ago, and I just tied the straps onto the remaining part, which is much beefier and held up fine, although it is now visibly bent. On new boats I automatically remove the swivel and never give it a chance to break.

But this loses the easy adjustability of the original buckle, and I think it is just a matter of time before the remaining plastic part breaks as well. The aluminum buckles restore that adjustability, and are much stronger and I don't worry about them at all. And they look great.

I found these on eBay while looking for replacement buckles to carry as spares. They are not that much more expensive than the plastic ones. I tied the old buckles inside the 'trunk' just in case.

Printed from njkayak.net