Kayaking Made Easy by Dennis Stuhaug

Author:Dennis Stuhaug
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780762793808
Publisher: Falcon Guides

On the plus side, I know that you’ve found a middle-of-the-road touring kayak from a darned good builder. We don’t have to confront an inappropriate kayak—just one that’s not ready for you.

Get back into your PFD, grab your paddle, and scramble back into your kayak here on the beach. Sit in your boat, with your rump fully on the seat (most seats are form-fitting, so you’re really in them) and your back up against the back-band of the seat. Adjust your back support so that you’re sitting comfortably erect. As your mother used to say, don’t slouch. To use your total body to paddle, you’re going to have to sit up.

Are the balls of your feet pressing lightly against your foot pegs? What do I mean by foot pegs? The places you rest your feet. If you could see up and under your foredeck while you’re sitting there, you’d see two long metal tracks fastened to the outer walls of your kayak. Each has a cushioned wedge that can be moved fore and aft, along the track. Some will have a spring-mounted peg in the wedge, with the peg locking into one of a series of holes in the track. The wedges on yours have the same row of little holes, with a bolt and wing nut locking them into place. There are probably a dozen other adjustable locking mechanisms, including ones that can be slid back and forth while you are sitting in your kayak. These footrests should be adjusted so that your feet are on the rests, your knees are on the underside of your deck (usually, like yours, against pads), and your back is resting against the back support.

Some kayaks are equipped with rudders, and you rest your feet on the control pedals. You can adjust the pedals fore and aft, sometimes as a single unit and sometimes as two separate units. Most likely you’ll have to adjust the cables from the rudder pedals to the rudder at the same time. That’s no big deal.

You have the balls of your feet on the pegs, your heels are angled in toward each other, and your feet are at a right angle to your lower legs—all is right with the world except that your heels aren’t resting on anything. Your feet are just dangling off the pegs. Take a couple of squares of closed-cell foam and tape them to the deck where your heels should rest. (We haven’t opened the glue can yet—and don’t. Use some of that duct tape and tack the foam into position.) A couple of thin pieces may be easier to place than one thicker pad, but that’s going to depend on what size of foam you acquired. My feet are long enough to reach the pegs when my heels are on the hull, and I think that a square of foam feels better than the fiberglass of my boat.

You might find a kayak with fixed or non-adjustable footrests. One design might have your feet

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