First off, the Guide 119 canoe is an awesome boat. It's light, stable, inexpensive, tough, and has a workhorse load capacity for a 12' craft. I've owned mine for about nine months and had it out a couple dozen times on flatwater. I've yet to tip it, and that's even after modifying the seat layout and position to a less-stable format than the factory uses. The seating is my only gripe with this boat, and it isn't even much of a gripe really, because I bought this boat knowing I wanted it to do more than it was marketed to do. At 12' in length, it's a solid solo rig, and the seat that comes installed is the hard molded plastic variety that is set to ride several inches lower than the gunnels.
I took it out on the water with this seat once and because of the low position, it felt distinctly more kayak than canoe. Not a complaint, just an observation. For me, sitting higher on the water and having better visibility down into the water is more desirable than the lower setting. In addition to that, the poly molded seat is kind of a heavy brute, so replacing it with an ash and webbing seat was my first mod to this canoe.
A few weeks ago, in preparation for a short trip with my son Jack, I got around to making and installing a second smaller seat. It took me a little while to figure out the placement so that it wouldn't mess up the balance and also wouldn't get in the way of using it solo. In the end, I put the 2nd seat in the bow, but when running the canoe tandem instead of solo, we turn it around and essentially paddle the canoe backwards with the steering paddler in what is actually the bow. When going solo, the bow stays the bow, and I use the 2nd seat for gear or as a leg stretching rest. Both seats are mounted to the nylon gunnels, so the high center of gravity is something to get used to, but it still isn't tippy to the point of worry or regret, even with myself and a little boy that doesn't sit still for more than 2 minutes.
No comments:
Post a Comment