Semi-DIY Boat Stand

In case it may be helpful to somebody.
I have been looking for decent set of stands sturdy enough to hold the boat while I am sitting in it and does not cost a bunch or needs to be shipped.

Following the idea I saw on this site somewhere (sorry can't find the topic) I found 2 so- called director folding chairs. You will need to find two of those somewhere.


Things to look out for:
- Make sure they are wide enough. A lot of the chairs I saw were kinda narrowish. This one is ~21 inch wide between armrests, which should work for most boats.
- You want a simple design where the armrests are level and not swept up towards the front.
- Preferably round tubing and suitable for sawing (since you will need to hack the back off)
- Hopefully the way the back is attached to the frame is something simple allowing for easy removal that does not require you to leave long protruding stumps. Which can be worked trough, just extra hassle and awkwardness.

 


- Rip off the fabric. You might want to leave the seat on if you wish. In my case the seat would have limited the depth somewhat and I basically saw no value in so I removed all fabric.

- Saw off the back posts. The  top of back posts were insulated with plastic caps and I reused them, bit it's not really important.
It should end up looking something like this. Note the capped stumps where the back posts used to be.

 

- get some good quality straps, measure them to the amount of slack you want
- stitch the straps to the frame. This is likely the most time-consuming part. You want good strong stitching that will hold your weight together with the boat. If you are handy with a sawing machine it will go a long way here. I did it by hand.

 

- Almost done. Test the strength (carefully sit on the straps or something like that).
- Get 2 pool noodles and a full or almost full roll of duct tape. I hate to run out of stuff in the middle and drive to a store.
- Cut up pieces of a pool noodle, position them over the open metal and tape with duct tape. Don't go all in yet, just attach the pieces well enough to stay on. You would need about a full noodle per chair.
- See if the chair still folds nicely. The noodle sections can interfere with other parts so you need to trim them to stay out of the way (mostly). I had to shorten the elbow portions not to extent too far down.
- Do your final taping in accordance to your individual level of obsessiveness. . Winding the tape tight helps limit the amount of slide the cushions have so you don't have to secure them additionally.
- Done.





Its all common sense really. Just hoping that laying down all the points would make the process easier with no do-overs and multiple trips to a hardware store.

Nice. I'm sure that was a hell of a lot cheaper than the Burnham boats slings I just got. The Epic slings say not to use while sitting in the boat, but I'm sure they are strong enough. I would have tried that if I found the info sooner.

It really comes down to the cost of the chairs. Directors are not the cheapest camping chairs, but still you can fairly easily be within a 100 canadian all said and done.

The chairs are rated at something like 140 kg each and for the strap I cut up one of the moving slings, the one you use to haul furniture with. But it can be easily replaced with cargo nylon straps. Even light duty ones are strong enough when used in multiples at a time. I am sure the resulting stands would be rated quite high if you are not stingy with your stitching.