Wooden Boat People

By McKenzieDriftBoat.com

Rower seat height?

Greetings;

I am to the point where I have to come up with the height to install my rower seat in my double-ender with a transom. (Using Roger Fletcher's plans). Obviously I can build the seat with the frames too long (putting the seat high, and whittle it down, but I'd like to get it close to begin with. Dave Witton, how did you start with your seat height? Anyone else?

Thanks,

Dave Bartels

Eugene, OR

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Permalink Reply by David Witton on May 22, 2016 at 6:11am

Mike Baker told me to set the seat 12" above the floor (not the floorboards). Works fine, AFAIK. I built a sliding front seat, and set that height a bit lower.

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Permalink Reply by Dave Bartels on May 22, 2016 at 6:55am

Thanks, Dave.

Can I assume the 12" is from the bottom of the seat frame to the floor? BTW, I loved seeing yours at the festival here last month. You've done a beautiful job!

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Permalink Reply by Mike Thomas on May 22, 2016 at 8:54pm

Most of the searches I did on here asking the same question came up with 16" from the bottom of the boat to the seat surface as a general height. Mock up a seat once you have some oarlocks in place and check it out, see what works best for you.

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Permalink Reply by dreu patterson on May 26, 2016 at 4:00pm

I'm with mike,16" from floor to seat.I made mine a little lower to compensate for the seat swivel.One thing to keep in mind if it's too low you can always add spacers under your seat.Too tall and your in for some work.I also made my passenger seats slightly lower 2" ish so the rower has better vision down stream

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Permalink Reply by chris towles on May 26, 2016 at 6:39pm

I'm with the 16" too crowd. My last boat was a 16x48 Mackenzie and that seemed to be a good position.

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Permalink Reply by Mark Stuberr on May 27, 2016 at 8:03am

Just to toss in my two cents. You can use the measurement from the bottom of the boat up but i think it is more important to nail the height between the top of the seat and the cup in your oarlocks. This distance will determine your range of motion with the oars. I am constantly fiddling with this number as well as the distance the seat sits behind the oar locks.