Stuart Reeve posted on November 20, 2009 06:46
If you are looking to take your boat on some serious rivers then one of the things you should certainly consider doing is crash proofing your footplate. The theory is that if you smack into a rock quite hard there is a danger that you can break your ankles as your bones are more likely to give than the outfitting of your boat.
The idea is that you use a shed load of foam to build up your footrest to give you some cushioning and give against the initial blow when you run into something.
Below is how I did it in my new Pyranha Karnali.
The first thing I did was to shape the piece of foam that came with the boat so that it fitted inside the boat at the place where I wanted me feet to be.
I then adjusted the footplate so that the foam was resting on it. I then noted down the distance between the current setting for the footplate and where it would be on it’s maximum extension. This gave me an idea of how much extra foam I could put in and still keep the foam I had just trimmed in the same place.
I then went and purchased some more foam to help crash proof the footrest. I noticed that I could fit 2 x the depth of the foam I had just purchased between the footplate and the foam I had just shaped. With the new foam I cut out a shape that would cover the footplate width ways and height of the boat.
Using the off cuts from the shaping process, I then stuck onto the piece of foam that fits the foot plate. Space is left between these off cuts as they will be your shock absorber and compress when you crash into something.
Onto the off cuts I glued the original piece of foam that I had shaped then added a heal block to support my feet.
Hey Presto, a crash proof footrest