How and Why to drill your seat!

[Tanya Faux]

Firstly just remember if you do this to your kayak you will comprise the warranty of it. 

I recommend drilling the seat, especially as a female as it with lighten your kayak. You can do this to your playboat or creeker and river runner.

Will it reduce the strength of your kayak?

I personal have not experience and structural strength issues in applying this to my kayaks. I look at it as the same as bone structure. This bone is call sponge bone, see image  below. While it has holes in it, it remain strong.

I recommend leaving 2cm or 3/4” between each drill hole.

Equipment Needed

Phillips head screw driver

Drill

1”1/4 Hole saw

Step 1.

• Loosen or remove your thigh braces.

Step 2. 

• Remove the center pillar bolt/screw (creek boat only).

Step 3.

• Remove seat. Do this buy undoing the seat screws (will be 4, 2 each side). You should hear the seat bold plate drop. 

• You have to be a bit ruff to get the seat out, don’t worry you want hurt your kayak.

Step 4.

• Using the "hole saw" drill out section of your seat.
• Once again I would recommend leaving a 2cm of space around the circumference of the hole and this will keep the integrity of your seat.
• You can use a mental file to clean the edges if you like.

Step 5. 

• Put your new light wight boat back together.

A good idea is to take picture before you remove everything that way if you forget where bolts went you can refer back.

Have a Merry X-mas, maybe a bit of snow kayaking for some... for me a surf kayak is in order! or maybe a new boat from sainter!

Cheers T

 

[Taylor Cavin]

Way cool how-to, Tanya! Interesting comparison to bone-marrow... Your expedition-oriented articles have given me an idea for one of my own...