: Get a rigid piece of foam -- expanded styrene from a crafts store, or
: building insulation from the home center.

: Cut a chunk to the width of your seat.

: use some rubber cememt sparingly to glue a 9x12 sheet of 80 grit or 100 grit
: sandpaper to the bottom of your boat. The cement will force the sandpaper
: to conform to the exact shape of the hull.

: Grab the block of foam and move it back and forth over the sand paper,
: pushing gently. Try to keep it going in a straight line. The coarse
: sandpaper will cheww through that foam in minutes, if not seconds, and the
: foam will rapidly be shaped to fit the bottom of the hull exactly.

: Peel off the sandpaper and glue it to the bottom of your kayak seat. Take the
: block of foam and repeat the process, rubbing to and fro until the foam is
: shaped to be a perfect match for the seatbottom.

: A construction cement that is labeled to be safe for use with styrene foams
: will hold the foam block to the bottom of tthe kayak seat, and you cna use
: the same adhesive to hold the hook parts of the velcro to the bottom of
: the foam pad. The softer loop part of the velcro is glued to the bottom of
: your boat. That way if your seat comes loose you won't have to sit on the
: annoying stiff velcro.

: Hope this helps.

: If you come through the Chicago area on your way to Minnesota, wave. Maybe
: I'll see the sunlight glinting off that highly polished "haul"

: PGJ

I printed out your advise Paul for referance material when I build a good seat this winter. The one piece walmart plastic molded seat with back will hold me for now. I need to position it in different places on my trip to see how it will react to my fully loaded and unloaded kayak. I was looking closely at the seat yesterday and I believe I can slit some of the reinforcement ribs underneath the seat bottom and it will comform to the haul when I sit in it. I am going to make it possible to hook a wide black type of bungy 6 or 8 inches from the back of the cockpit so I can move the seat forward with the back resting against the bungy and I will have two positions for paddling and evaluating the yak. The seat sides wedge tight between the side storage compartment and so the seat is held in place pretty good. A cord will attached to the seat so it won't float away if I tip over.

I have nothing against Chicago but I think I will shoot on over to central ILL. and then up. I once got off the insterstate at the wrong place by Chicago and liked to have never gotten back to my road. I could see my road but couldn't get back on it. Scary for a small town guy.

John