[Paddlewise] Sliding Seat Bashing and witness badgering (previously incorrectly re-titled by the badgerer to: RE:sliding seat failure--from Re:sliding seat issues)

To Paddlewise and Mr. Peter Treby, Partner ^V McMahon & Treby Solicitors
Since Paddlewisers have likely already read the response to the following
post I sent to Peter (but inadvertently not Paddlewise).  I thought maybe
you should have a chance to read the original that I sent to Peter (rather
than the edited version he responded to on Paddlewise (after it had been
carefully misinterpreted and then carefully edited by a lawyer in continuing
to badger this witness--me). When I wrote this originally I only suspected
by his badgering, setting up a straw man to attack, asking essentially the
same question over and over again, and skillfully twisting what I had
previously written, that Peter could well be a lawyer since he certainly
acted like one. Today I tried to check out my suspicions and found this on
the web: http://www.liv.asn.au/news/practicenotes/19990603_19990705.html
I present it as evidence that my guess he is (or was once) a lawyer was
correct.

Here is the original (unedited since) version I sent to him:

I delayed sending this response for two weeks because I was waiting for a
response from Steve to the questions I asked him to learn more details about
the " Literally up to his armpits" incident he reported. I haven't heard
from Steve at all yet so I don't know anything more about that report and my
response to Peter is getting less timely every day I wait to send it. So
here goes (Warning, a very long post)

Peter wrote:

>>>>>Matt says: [actually I'm quoting our manual here]
"With the possibility of entrapment in mind, we suggest that anyone
intending to paddle in extreme conditions (while using the sliding seat
option),
both make sure to not put anything behind the seat that could shift around
and
block it from moving freely backwards and to limit the forward slide range
of the seat to a point where a wet exit would still be easy."

[Peter responded:]
Extreme conditions? Just coming in through surf is normal not extreme. Any
sea kayak ought to be designed to be paddled safely, or as safely as the
boat can allow, through small to medium surf. If this risk of the seat
sliding forward is known, and by your mention of it, you know about it, why
doesn't the boat fitted with a sliding seat come with a forward travel
limiting arrangement? Why should the unwary purchaser have to retrofit
strings and drill holes in the coaming?<<<<<<<<<<


Peter, during the Boat Trim discussion and here you seem to have a way of
not understanding what I write and them making assumptions that aren't
correct about it.  Are you perhaps, a lawyer, or do you practice this
technique for some other purpose?

Surf that most kayakers would choose to come in or out through is not
extreme conditions in my mind just like it is apparently not in yours. So
where did you come up with me saying surf is what I meant when I said
extreme conditions (but not when you said it)? A big dumping shore break or
large six foot plus dumping surf is what is extreme conditions in my mind.
You seem to have defined 'extreme' for me differently than you do for
yourself and then used your imagined version of what extreme is to me as the
basis for your argument. To me that sure sounds like a lawyer writing.

You first quote what I wrote in our manual to warn our customers and
potential customers about an imagined but never experienced possibility
(even though history has shown that the chances of this happening are very
slim--we hadn't yet ever heard of it occurring, cannot yet even confirm
Steve's report, and had never had it happen to us during all the surfing on
the Washington coast we did ourselves) and then you ask "why should the
unwary purchaser". I ask you, how did the purchaser get back to being
"unwary" we certainly haven't been trying to keep him in the dark, we put
the warning in bold faced type even though it might not have been necessary
to do so at all as we had no examples to go by only our own concern about
the possibility.

I understand that in Australia a lot of sea kayaking involves coming in and
going out through the surf. In the U. S. surf launches and landings are
quite rare among sea kayakers. Normal surf that most of the few folks who do
surf would even consider paddling in would be extremely unlikely to ever
cause the seat to move.  It would take spearing the bottom at a shallow
angle (before the kayak is rotating into an ender and several other unlikely
events) to move the seat. Spearing the bottom in our kayaks is practically
impossible to do, even in extreme surf,  because they all have a full volume
bow with raked or rounded high ends (and surf is one of the reasons that
they all have these shapes). It also takes a certain foot and leg position
to get the seat to move forward even when you are trying to move it. We have
to teach people just what to do to get it to move at all. This is not the
foot position that one naturally assumes in the case of a kayak pearling its
bow and about to ender (which at first is to stand on the balls of the feet
and lean back). This position brakes the seat from sliding because the
forward part of the pedal (in front of the slide bolt) is then levered
(torqued) hard against its aluminum slide rail. Bowing ones legs and pushing
the outside of the foot against just  the outside edge of the footpad (and
pulling the footpads inward off of the slide track) is what is needed to
move the seat. Ones thighs must also be taken off the thigh braces to move
the seat. That is just the opposite of what someone doing an ender naturally
does. But, even if the seat were to move forward due to some freak
occurrence it is very easy to move it back again, whether one is rightside
up or upside down. That is why even though it seemed a possibility the seat
could move I didn't worry much about it when surfing myself. In the manual,
rather than spell out exactly which extreme conditions could potentially
make the seat move I wanted to warn those few paddlers who might potentially
encounter conditions extreme enough where this might conceivably happen
(however unlikely) to consider this worst case scenario and provide them
with, what I considered, the easiest and most secure way to eliminate even
that extremely rare possibility. Of course, anything we might do to fix the
seat may create the potential for some other hazard as yet unrealized.
Should I expose the 99% of our customers to those as yet unknown hazards due
to changing a system that has not caused anyone problems we knew of before?
I know from experience that any change, even one done with the best of
intentions, can cause serious problems never imagined by the designer.

In all my time playing in 6+ foot surf I've never had the seat move more
than the slightest bit either forwards or backwards from the position I
started out in. This includes some rear enders spearing hard into the sand
when the shore break was too big to bust out through. I had thought that
this would slide the seat back and I made the top of the seat-back high
enough to hit the coaming so the seat couldn't slide under the coaming and
let the coaming strike my back in a smaller area. I also soon made the seat
no higher than the top of the coaming so as not to create a sharper area
that might dig into ones back as the momentum of the hit (or the force of a
big breaker dumping into me) might force me hard into a laying back onto the
back deck position. When I did rear ender and hit the sand hard I was
surprised that in those cases the seat didn't move either. Instead the seat
plate torqued in the rubber seat slide tracks temporarily braking it from
moving. You must push back very low down in the seat with your butt while
pivoting your upper body a little forward to put the pressure low down near
the tracks  to get the seat to move back (and not put greater pressure near
the top of the seat). You must also take the pressure off the foot pedals
and your thighs off the thigh braces--not something that can all happen when
your kayak suddenly stops going backwards as its stern jams into the sand.
What happens then is your upper body moves towards the point of collision
(towards the back in this surfing backwards case) and pushes the most on the
top part of the bucket seat backrest. This pressure at the top tries to
rotate the seat, but the seat bottom plate can rotate just a bit before it
locks up in its rubber slide tracks and won't slide until the pressure is
released.

Peter further wrote:
>>>>>If a bulkhead was fitted behind the seat, a pad eye or two could
conveniently
be fitted to tie restraining cords up to.
If a forward bulkhead was fitted, the seat, or the feet, could be prevented
from travelling too far in that direction too.
Holes in the coaming may weaken the coaming, or cause leaks.
BTW, is there any provision in Mariner boats to limit stowed gear bags
travelling around in the boat? Sliding around when doing enders?<<<<<

If the kayak is heavily loaded there is not much room for the seat to slide
forward at all because you've most likely got gear bags up against your
heels at the normal trim position (with or without a bow bulkhead) and may
even have the seat packed in tight so the sliding back feature isn't even
available for the first few days of a trip (until you eat and drink some of
your gear bulk). Since with a gear load you would have no reason to want to
slide the seat forward from the trim position there is no serious
disadvantage to putting light bulky bags in the front that fill up the kayak
all the way back to ones feet. In fact, you may well have the seat further
back from the empty trim position to compensate for the weight of the bow
gear load.

The flat bottom of our sliding seat footpedals prevent any but the smallest
gear bags from accidentally floating out past the footpedals, after a wet
exit, even if the cockpit is flushed by the surf (they are also made flat in
front so they can go further forward in a Mariner II equipped with a bow
bulkhead--this means the bow bulkhead can be placed further back for more
buoyancy without limiting the seat slide range). If the kayak was ordered
without the optional rear bulkhead the seat itself keeps gear bags of any
size from floating out of the back if they were to move but most are wedged
tightly in place when the kayak is loaded (and are XL size) and they don't
easily move. If the load is light the stern float bag can be inflated above
the gear to hold it in place as well. A sea sock (which we recommend for
surf, exposed coasts and long crossings) would further prevent any gear at
all coming out and would also limit the slide range forward (because the sea
sock would have to slide between your butt and the seat around the curve of
the seat and seat back--in my experience that's not easy even when I'm
trying to so). I pull the sock back to my feet and tuck some excess sea sock
behind the seat when I'm getting in the kayak to allow the seat to move
within the range I want without the fabric having to slide between my butt
and the seat to do so. The sea sock also maximizes the buoyancy (how high a
swamped kayak floats) beyond any other flotation system I know of. Most bow
bulkheads are placed in front of the footbrace track and the paddler with
average leg length is likely to find the pedal in the middle of the pedal
track range (typically there is about a foot of pedal adjustment range)
reducing the bow buoyancy when swamped.

Peter's suggestion of adding a front bulkhead could only prevent especially
long-legged paddlers from moving too far forward. A large float bag (like we
sell to fit our kayaks) could be inflated fully and placed so that it came
back to near that particular paddler's foot pedals to limit the possible
slide range forward for any leg length person (as could gear bags, but not
fixed bulkheads unless they were custom installed for a particular paddler).
We do custom install front bulkheads sometimes in the Mariner II but that
will tend to limit the potential market for that kayak (when it is resold)
to people with shorter legs and/or smaller feet than the original customer.

While there are several possible ways the seat slide range could be limited
for those few paddlers who could conceivably ever need it, I believe the
method I suggested in our manual is the best one. There is a very short
distance from the coaming hanger to the back seat supports and I believe
this provides the strongest anchor for the seat, whether the kayak has a
rear bulkhead or not. For 99% of North American kayakers setting up this
slide range stopper up in advance would just confuse them more than our
unique sliding seat unit already can (and we wouldn't know what other risks
might be being created for a possibly far greater percentage of our
customers with any temporary method of limiting the slide range). We will
happily set up a sliding seat limiter (as described in the manual or one of
the customer's choice if it seems reasonable to us) for anyone who requests
it (at no extra charge).

By stating the never experienced and unlikely (but mentally conceivable)
potential problems up front in our manuals (that we send to any new customer
before they have to decide on the seat option they want--and that anyone
interested in our kayaks can also read for free on the web when shopping for
a kayak) anyone who fears that possibility might ever be a problem for them
can either buy someone else's kayaks or any of our models with one of the
several other--less expensive and lighter weight--fixed seat options).

I'm kind of a safety nut, but I have never fixed the sliding seat for use in
surf (except since I started using a sea sock in surf--which fixes the seat
by its nature--for other reasons*) even though I thought, during the design
stage, that the seat might slide too easily and was thinking of ways that it
could be fixed into whatever position we chose between moves--but could
still be easily adjusted while in the kayak--in the earliest design drawings
when trying to imagine how an easily adjustable trim changing seat could be
created. [*Note I began to use a sea sock in surf not to fix the seat from
sliding, but so I could stay out longer before having to come in and empty
out the kayak again and to make the kayak lighter and less likely to be
damaged--or damage me or someone else--if it was to come back to shore full
of water without me and possible wrap around a boulder or spear the bottom
in a shorebreak and fold due to the extra water weight]. I also have always
beveled the front of the seat track guides into a shallow ramp so that the
seat couldn't get stuck in front of them and be held there (if it somehow
were to get that far forward with someone still in the cockpit).  I've never
heard of anyone needing this but I do it every time anyway as I can't
imagine any potential downside except the extra few minutes it takes me to
grind them into that shape.

Back in the early days of our business we went to the original
organizational meetings of the
Trade Association of Sea Kayaking (TASK) (now Trade Association of Paddle
Sports--TAPS). Liability issues were discussed with a lawyer at some of
those meetings. The lawyers told us (manufacturers, retailers, renters, and
guides) that anything we said and (especially) wrote in the way of guidance
for the customer might well be used against us in court and advised us
against saying or writing anything in the way of safety information or
"safe" locations to paddle (or even limiting where the renter could take the
rented kayak at all due to safety reasons--because then it could be
construed that the renter had approved all other locations as being
perfectly safe). Ludicrous, yes, but that was the reality of the legal
system at least in the US. Cam and I had to make a choice. Do we try to
protect ourselves from liability lawsuits and leave our customers to fend
for themselves (often in ignorance of the hazards and therefore more likely
to die) as the lawyers suggested or do we give them the best guidance we can
and take the risk of  lawyers later attacking both what we said and what we
didn't say. Once having given any safety advice at all we apparently become
liable for anything we fail to say in regards to safety hazards as well. We
chose to educate our customers and risk letting the lawyer types (and our
sharp competitors) twist those statements to their own purposes rather than
choosing to cover our own asses. So far, I'm glad we made that choice.

I could put the shoe on the other foot:
Peter, you paddle a kayak with pointed ends in the surf. You therefore risk
spearing an innocent victim with your dagger like bow. You should be aware
that this is a possibility and therefore at least pad your pointed bow and
stern with some large blunt soft item. In fact, I think Australia, having
such an abundance of surf, should pass a law that each end of any kayak made
from now on should have a large clown nose ball-shaped bow and stern so if
that kayak is used in the surf then it would be less of a danger to the
paddler, swimmers, surfacing skin divers, and near surface wildlife in the
area. All kayaks without round blunt ends should need to be retrofitted or
retired within the next two years. Since any kayak could potentially be used
in the surf maybe all kayaks worldwide should have this blunt bow and stern
shape and all kayakers should also be required to buy a helmet to go with
any kayak they buy kayak just in case that kayak might at some time be used
in the surf. Also, maybe all kayaks should have lightning rods (and
spontoons) installed by the manufacturer (and made illegal to remove) to
protect the occupants from hazards that could arise when paddling at any
time. Maybe a large sturdy cross-bar also needs to be placed across the
Aussie kayaks, one that extends well out beyond its sides in the seat area
so that a salt-water croc or great white shark would be prevented from
chomping down directly on the paddler's part of the kayak.

According to someone on this list, Steve has developed or provides a skeg
clearing tool made from a butter knife (if I'm recalling correctly).
Therefore, isn't that good evidence he is well aware that skegs on his
kayaks can jam. How can he sell a kayak, in good conscience, where the skeg
might jam (or with someone else we could use--the rudder might break) and
make that kayak more difficult to control as a result. Kayaks should not be
sold with such unreliable devices like a rudder that can also slash or bash
a paddler in the surf (unless maybe covered by a clown nose too). A rudder,
often complete with thin exposed cables, that can easily cut his hand to the
bone if slid across it (actually happened at least once in BC and required
evacuation) if he tries to grab the kayak and catches only the rudder cable.
Maybe all kayakers with rudders should be required to always wear gloves to
minimize this risk. Then again, maybe, no gloves should be allowed to be
sold to anyone at all because some of them might fall into the hands of
kayakers. The gloved kayaker then might not be able to find the release loop
on their spray deck because of their lack of feeling through those same
gloves (reported to me personally at least a half a dozen times--and because
of that, eventually resulted in Doug Lloyd's entrapment article in Sea
Kayaker a little while back). [Note: I was too busy to write the article
although at first I intended to. I bugged the editor of Sea Kayaker to get
someone else to write the article ASAP, rather than wait until I had time,
because I felt paddlers needed to be warned quickly before this problem
resulted in a tragedy. I was willing to supply any author with copies of my
notes and names and phone numbers of "victims" to interview. Paddlewise's,
Doug Lloyd was the third person to take on trying to write that article for
Sea Kayaker. I thought he did an excellent job of it.

Peter, you weren't looking at one of our kayaks when you criticized the
addition of holes through the seat hangers of the coaming, so you couldn't
readily see where the cord can be passed through the coaming without there
being a hole through the kayak to the outside (on the hangers where a fixed
seat option can be hung by bolts through holes drilled in the same area). No
holes need to go through to the outside of the kayak as you imply. I don't
think a bulkhead would be the best attachment point for a seat slide limiter
because the bulkhead would likely have to be made overly beefy (possibly
making the hull rather than the bulkhead the place where damage would most
likely occur--a much more serious failure--if a collision with a rock near
it or sliding over a rock concentrated stress in the bulkhead area). We have
an eyelet inside most of our kayaks (those that don't have a rear bulkhead)
that a cord could be tied to to limit forward seat travel or help contain
any gear that might be in danger of shifting. I've never needed to use it
for holding in gear though.

The case of a seat sliding forward that Steve described, if confirmed, is
the first case I can recall ever even hearing about this having happened, in
24 years of making sliding seat kayaks. If any paddler had it happen and
thought it was a significant problem I suspect I would have heard about it
from them directly. We encourage both positive and negative feedback and
customers certainly haven't been shy about sharing other problems with us
concerning items we or others have sold them. I hope to be able to contact
any paddler who has had any frightening experience with one of our kayaks to
get more details about what exactly happened so we can best solve the actual
problem. I would like to minimize the risk to our customers caused by or
aggravated by something about our kayaks. However, I don't want to create a
greater risk for every new owner by attempting to fix what is possibly only
an imagined risk for a very small percentage of owners.

About two weeks ago, I asked Steve to let me know who the kayaker was he
wrote had the problem he described. I asked several other questions that
might help me figure out who that (I assume) Oregon kayaker might have been
(if Steve couldn't remember or didn't know the kayaker's name). I also asked
how this paddler recovered or was rescued from the situation he described.
So far I haven't heard a word back from Steve about this. Several
possibilities present themselves as to why. They range from Steve having
gone on vacation and hasn't yet seen my request to Steve's post being a
made-up scenario that seemed possible (we mentioned it in our own literature
after all) but never actually happened. The "literally up to his armpits"
part did arouse my suspicions that the report might not be entirely true (or
was perhaps remembered incorrectly) because that is just not what would
happen if the seat were to slide well forward (because the foot pedals are
attached to the seat and move with it--so the paddler would remain in the
upright seated position as they slid forward). I'd prefer to hear about this
from the person it happened to rather than from a public pronouncement on
this list made by a direct competitor with a potential axe to grind (since
we compete in both retail and design aspects of this business). Recall that
this topic started out as a skeg jamming discussion (and that it was not
brought up on Paddlewise by me). This may just be a "red herring" but if it
did actually happen I'd sure like to hear more about it from the guy who
actually experienced it.

Why am I being so skeptical? Well, from long experience. We were one of, if
not the, first sea kayak companies in the U.S. to put hard chines on
fiberglass sea kayaks (about 24 years ago). Many times back then we heard
from potential customers that they had been told by competitors that hard
chines get grabbed by waves and currents, and will be grabbed by the water
and suddenly flip you upside down. We knew these stories were not coming
from people who had ever paddled with hard chines because we knew from
experience in the roughest of conditions that it simply wasn't true. We had
lots of experience in those conditions, including big surf, with hard chine
kayaks and had less problems with them than with round bilged kayaks. The
criticism was strictly in the imaginations of someone looking for a way to
dismiss a competitor's kayaks based on a unique feature of those kayaks that
the kayaks they sold didn't have. Now that there are a lot of hard chined
sea kayaks on the market, we don't hear that "red herring" much any more.

We also heard from those influenced by the promoters of British kayaks (and
the promoters themselves in newsletters in some cases) that our longer
cockpits (than the 19"x15" or so sized kayak cockpits they promoted) would
allow paddlers to be forcibly ejected from the cockpit in rough seas. We
don't hear that one any more either as now most British kayaks sold in this
country have cockpits much closer to the size we had back then than to their
"Ocean" sized cockpits.

I still hear from people that have been told by a salesman that you
absolutely need a rudder because of "winds and currents". I can understand
why someone with limited experience with a variety of kayaks would say that
about winds but I still haven't had anyone adequately explain to me what
currents do to a kayak that might be made easier to deal with if one had a
rudder. The hardest thing I find about currents is knowing if you are in one
and which way and how fast is it pushing you. To me a GPS would seem to be a
far bigger help than a rudder when faced with "currents".

Our "Paddling" manual goes into many possible risks, both real and imagined.
All things we want our customers to consider when using our kayak designs.
What other kayak company spells out possible risks involved with kayaking
like this?  Lawyer types and sharp competitors may well attempt to use our
concern about our customers (and sea kayakers in general) against us. That
is a risk we take by making our concerns freely available to everyone. We
will continue to do so.

Matt Broze
www.marinerkayaks.com
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