Positioning frame on a raft

[caverdan]

When I rig my frame on my raft, I try and position my oar towers a few inches behind the center of the raft. I'm curious as to how others position their frames in relationship to the center of the raft tubes. Any thoughts??

[JBL]

My towers are centered on the tubes.

[mania]

It depends on if you have passengers or not. If you are by yourself and you center your towers I suspect the boat would be a little back heavy. FWIW.

[rwhyman]

On my raft, I center the frame on the raft and my towers are a little behind center on the frame. I'd have to measure, but I'd guess maybe 6 inches. The towers are mainly positioned by where I sit, which is dictated by how I have the bays are set up. I think the relationship of the towers and the seat are important for comfort and rowing efficiency. I always try and load gear to keep the nose a bit heavy to drive into the big sh!t.

On my new/used cat, I'm still playing with the set up and I'm not sure how that is going to end up, other than the seat / tower relationship.

[Robt]

I slide the frame around on my cat depending on the trip. I try to keep things pretty balanced. If It's just me in the boat for the day I put my oar towers pretty close to center on the boat, and load all of my gear towards the front of the boat. The more gear/people I have the further I slide the frame back to keep balanced. Total range is probably from oars just forward of center to 6" back of center.

I load the raft accordingly too. If I have 2 or three people riding on the front of the boad I put the cooler, ammo cans, anything heavy I have as far back as possible. If it's just me in the boat I put the heavy stuff as far forward as possible.

Rob

[oarbender]

on the 16' raft, I use a 4 bay frame. My towers are towards the back of the second bay, from the stern. I sit on a large cooler, the second bay, (from the stern) is the captains bay (arrrgg), and then a drybox, and then 5 ammo cans.

the 12' cat is set up with towers about 6" forward of center, on a three bay frame, it has two seats, and with a passanger, I slide up a bit, but not much.

[wayniac]

The standard placement of the towers would be in the center or maybe just a bit back. But the main thing I always try to achieve with my tower placement in to make sure the oars wind up resting just under my knees- important when I need a beer. Other ways to mount the frame: I've run my 16 footer using a stern frame and paddlers, and also ran it from the stern (with my big frame- 4 compartments) through the Grand Canyon- but had my gear positioned so that the nose would be slightly heavy to make it track downstream naturally. I even ran the frame slightly toward the nose (when running light -solo) through the Dowd chutes at around 2500 and it tracked ok. And the last thing to consider. If you are fairly new to rowing and you have a tendency to pull away from everything- the center is your best shot. If you've already figured out how to push through most stuff, moving the frame a little further back won't mess you up. Otherwise spinning the boat out of trouble becomes difficult.............