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Mount a seat onto a big board for double-bladed paddling?
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isobars



Joined: 12 Dec 1999
Posts: 20935

PostPosted: Sat Sep 18, 2021 2:30 pm    Post subject: Mount a seat onto a big board for double-bladed paddling? Reply with quote

With my balance and strength rapidly going to hell, I’ve been thinking about sit-down paddle boarding … i.e., mounting a stadium seat onto a BIG, glidey, board and power it with a double-bladed paddle. As an experiment, it’s not worth buying a big SUP just for this purpose, so I’m thinking a big (150L?), old, WSing board like you see at swap meets for the price of a good breakfast. I expect the seat and its mounting process to cost more than the board. Glide would be important, I’d think, which exempts my 8’3” light air, highly rockered, wave/swell-oriented, sail-biased Sea Lion WSup.

Or maybe a better solution might be a sit-on kayak … if they glide well enough for this objective.

I don’t want to fool with a giant longboard or SUP … something on the order of 10 feet sounds much more manageable and transportable at least until I’m satisfied with the concept.

Ideas?
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windward1



Joined: 18 Jun 2000
Posts: 1400

PostPosted: Sat Sep 18, 2021 3:08 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I took my granddaughter, six years old at the time, paddling up Soquel Creek. I was standing on a SUP board using a SUP paddle. She sat on my Sea Lion and used a double bladed kayak paddle. You have the bigger Sea Lion, I think. Why not sit on it, sans chair, and kayak paddle it?
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dllee



Joined: 03 Jul 2009
Posts: 5328
Location: East Bay

PostPosted: Sat Sep 18, 2021 3:24 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Pass on the seat.
Without it, you can alternate between sitting and kneeling, and even a bit of standing.
Light weight is key for acceleration and easy paddling.
You are not paddling with 18' carbon kayaks.
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joethewindsufa



Joined: 10 Oct 2010
Posts: 1190
Location: Montral

PostPosted: Tue Sep 21, 2021 5:47 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

hope that the balance and strength reductions are merely due to age and not illness Sad

are there ways to improve on these conditions ??
or just a downhill ride Sad

btw SUPping on a W/S board is NOT an easy task !!
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isobars



Joined: 12 Dec 1999
Posts: 20935

PostPosted: Tue Sep 21, 2021 10:36 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

'Fraid not. Both (plus endurance, frequent falls, and loss of muscle mass) are due to Meniere's disease and life altering cancer drugs. This is a welcome improvement over the peaks in all those issues (I can sail, but only for a couple of hours at a time and only in fairly steady wind). I was expected to become completely incapacitated and then die 12, 6, and then again 3 years ago, but literally outsmarted many oncologists and their federal government Standards of Care by doing my own damned medical homework ... thousands of hours of it ... and telling them "No, thanks; I'd rather go windsurfing" while thinking "than succumb to your archaic treatment modalities". I won hands down despite no longer being able to jibe or to put in 8 hours in raging conditions.

I'd hope that sitting down would stabilize a big WS board sufficiently. If I had to haul around a 12-16 foot SUP, I'd just not bother ... mostly because I'm not about to get on top of my RV for ANYTHING, especially handling a big object.

HOWEVER, your observation about even a big WS board being exceptionally tippy compared to an SUP does give me some useful ideas. I'm 70 miles from my usual WSing launch, but just 5 miles from the intersection of the Columbia and Yakima Rivers. The Yakima delta is always completely flat (and scenic), and the Columbia is often flat here. I could sit-down paddle an SUP or a racy kayak 10 minutes from home, making the schlep much more tolerable and the conditions much more predictable. These options beat the medical field's orders and prognoses ALL to hell.

joethewindsufa wrote:
hope that the balance and strength reductions are merely due to age and not illness Sad

are there ways to improve on these conditions ??
or just a downhill ride Sad

btw SUPping on a W/S board is NOT an easy task !!
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isobars



Joined: 12 Dec 1999
Posts: 20935

PostPosted: Tue Sep 21, 2021 10:44 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

My Sea Lion is the 135 L version. It's probably stable enough for me when sitting on it, but its continuous rocker (it's designed for light-air wave use) really clobbers its glide capability. Wonder how long my abs would hold up to just sitting on it sans any backrest while paddling like hell? It's certainly worth a try, and it fits inside my Outback.

The intriguing issue in this whole idea is how to get back on after falling off. Seals could do it, so I guess I can, too, without kneeling or standing.

windward1 wrote:
You have the bigger Sea Lion, I think. Why not sit on it, sans chair, and kayak paddle it?
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isobars



Joined: 12 Dec 1999
Posts: 20935

PostPosted: Tue Sep 21, 2021 10:57 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Kneeling is far too unstable even now, let alone when I have to abandon WSing, where a powered-up sail provides tactile feedback to enable balance. I've already lost the strength and balance to gracefully progress from knees to feet even in my living room, let alone on a moving object with moving surfaces or objects in my field of view. ANY disturbance in "The Force" without something fairly stable to hold on to and I'm going down. Jibing has been all but impossible for me since (especially during) chemotherapy.

Now, about that 18' carbon kayak. That, or something a bit less extreme, might be a viable approach. I've seen one fellow hauling ass with minimal effort on a pointy kayak on that river delta (a scenic, quiet, large, wildlife reserve contiguous with the Columbia in the middle of my community) I mentioned above. That could provide a serious mid and upper body workout without demanding so much of the legs, which are hit especially hard by cancer meds.

dllee wrote:
Pass on the seat.
Without it, you can alternate between sitting and kneeling, and even a bit of standing.
Light weight is key for acceleration and easy paddling.
You are not paddling with 18' carbon kayaks.
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windward1



Joined: 18 Jun 2000
Posts: 1400

PostPosted: Tue Sep 21, 2021 11:30 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Oh, you have the 135 L Sea Lion. That is what I have. I thought you had the one they came out later with that was about a foot longer and had more displacement.

It sounds like a kayak might work, but you mentioned the difficulty of getting back on after a fall into the water. Kayaks are not that easy to get back into if impaired at all. I would think the SUP might be easier, but that may not be correct.

If you you were in a kayak, do you think you would be able to perform an "Eskimo Roll"?

Sorry to hear about the new impairments. I had hopes from earlier posts you had this year where you were out windsurfing that maybe things were improving. Hoping there is improvement in your future.
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dllee



Joined: 03 Jul 2009
Posts: 5328
Location: East Bay

PostPosted: Tue Sep 21, 2021 11:37 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

That's why "dump the seat"
Fall off, you crawl onto your belly like a surfboard, swing legs wide, push up to sit with legs on either side.
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isobars



Joined: 12 Dec 1999
Posts: 20935

PostPosted: Tue Sep 21, 2021 12:10 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I wouldn't bet my life on relying on an Eskimo roll. That plus old shoulder dislocations are a primary reason I never tried whitewater kayaking and its inevitable rolls. Sit-on kayaks supposedly eliminate that requirement and are easier to remount when necessary. I'm glad you brought up the Eskimo roll issue. Besides the waning strength, I have a very hard time finding "up" when there are even ripples, let alone chop or swell, within my field of view. I can easily envision, based on experience, getting completely disoriented when beneath a kayak I can't simply roll off of. Sit-in kayaks would likely be life-threatening for me even now, let alone when I could no longer WS.

The balance impairments began with the surgical excision of an inner ear in 1995. The strength began to wane and the balance decline began a rapid and continuous progression with chemo in 2017 and got much worse with ever-increasing additional meds since then. I remain extremely glad that my research led me to the only prostate cancer specialist in the world -- he's a savant, literally decades ahead of Johns Hopkins and the Mayo Clinic -- who treats this specific disease with better success and far less side effects than any other oncologist anywhere. Even so, I've refused some of his demands regarding some especially onerous meds my literature research and personal trials led me to adamantly reject. (Yet one more reason for my oft-repeated mantra is not "Never leave wind to find wind" or "Bring all your toys", but rather "Do your own damned homework".)

Now, about that Covid booster ...

windward1 wrote:
If you you were in a kayak, do you think you would be able to perform an "Eskimo Roll"?

Sorry to hear about the new impairments. I had hopes from earlier posts you had this year where you were out windsurfing that maybe things were improving. Hoping there is improvement in your future.
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