Perfect-Fit Ski

My take on the matter is that few boats are going to be "perfect". The reality sets in pretty quickly when we factor that all humans are built differently, and even twin brothers may have certain "preferences" when it comes to custom fitting and their skis.

The importance of a well-fitted ski is huge. A good fit will make your ski way more stable, comfortable, and ultimately faster because of the increase in stability.

There are three main areas that I believe must be customized:
The Sitting Bones
The Hip Bones
Your Feet

SITTING BONES
That one is pretty easy: a good seat pad that will in time take shape of your bottom. This pad should be slippery enough to allow for a good rotation.

Raising the seat will affect your stability in a negative way, so be careful not to over do it. However, raising your upper body will provide more power to your stroke (as long as you have enough stability to go with it).

Over time, the pad will take the shape of your butt and therefore provide you with an area to "fall back" into.

I dislike taping a seat pad on my boat because it seems to add weight. The biggest drawback of tape is that I find that it will bail out on me in the worst possible times (like the best downwind - ever).

Using glue is pretty good, but also has some drawbacks.

I find that Velcro works best. Glueing the soft side of the Velcro on the boat and the hard one on the pad is ideal. The best part about it is that you can easily remove your pad when letting your friends try it.

Over the years, I have tried dozen of pads… the best one will be covered with plastic / slippery material.

Careful: 1/2 cm pad can be dramatic for beginners.

HIP BONES
Your ski should be snug, but not too tight either. To accomplish this, you'll probably want to add enough padding to your hip bones area. Again, you can choose tape or glue to secure your custom hip pads, but I again prefer to glue Velcro on the ski & on the pads.

The hip bones pads will most likely be your next best friend; this is THE pad that will single handedly make all the difference in your stability - and in a good way.

FEET
You will want your feet to be well connected to your boat. Your strap system should be comfortable and snug. Your feet should more around much. Use surfboard wax on your foot plate, or better yet: place grippy pads on your entire foot plate and pedals.


I hope this helps couple of people… but perhaps you guys have personal favorites… or different ways to customize the fit of your boat that you'd like to share…

I have an Epic V8 and have thought about using a seat pad for 2 reasons. First, I am very stable in the boat and would like to challenge myself a little. Second, I find that the seat is molded in such a way and it reclines me a little which makes good posture a little more difficult. Hopefully adding a seat pad in the right place will alleviate this.

As for hip pads, I don't doing any downwinding as I don't live near the ocean. Is there any reason to have hip pads if you paddle 99% flat water?

I would like some padding on the foot peddles thought. The way the Epic pedals are designed, the ball of my feet press against the pivot point which is not totally flat. I thought about adding a slim layer of padding in order to bring it on the same plane as the heel brace/part.

When placing your pad/pads on your V8, here are couple of thoughts:
1. Before placing gluing the velcro on your seat, place a straight line between bow and stern using a string. This will make sure that the velvro is nicely center (being anal here, but it will just look nicer).
2. When placing your seat pad, try to make sure that at least 1/4 of it is placed on the UPHILL side of the seat. That may help, but feel free to move it around and try for yourself what seems to work best for your liking.
3. If you really like a challenge, go for the multiple pads from Epic. They are "no-brainers" and near-perfect. Almost too easy… wish I had thought of that myself
4. Careful: pads will also move you in a more forward position, but will also move you closer to pedals (almost all the time). You may need to move the pedal plate away from you a bit.

As for the hip pads:
99% on flat water may not absolutely require a perfect hip-fit… but I find that it still helps. Totally optional, even if still good to have.

For the Epic pedals: have your tried a full 3-piece pad ?
May totally resolve your problem.

Excellent topic photofr, thanks for your recent contributions to this forum. I wish I had more time to chime in, but work and paddling is all encompassing.

When I saw the pic of your GT (so jealous!) I noticed some blue padding on the side of the bucket. I did something similar in my first boat, a generation 1 v10s. Great addition to that old bucket, which was very, very wide. Calf padding helped too.

Anyway, here's a link to an old thread about my insert in my gen 1 V10. It was amazing. Such a great addition to a great boat. I've moved into a new V-10L recently and am totally in love with the boat. So much more stable than my 10 with the insert. Super responsive at only 20'-2" (as you well know).

www.surfski.info/forum/1-general/18156-composite-seat-pad.html

And here's a link to a thread over on the standup zone, (my un official ski thread) that shows a side pad in the old sport. God those were fun days. Only 4 years in ski and it seems like eons ago. I'm so hooked...

www.standupzone.com/forum/index.php/topic,10862.255.html

Kwolf, you may want to investigate the tall footplate for your boat. I have size 13 feet and also had the pivot on the ball of my foot. So I made a custom tall footplate for my 10 just before epic made one. I have a production tall footplate in my new L and it makes a huge difference.