I’ve been playing with my Sawyer Summersong and finding that with the seat set to trim the boat well the foot brace is either too close for comfort or too far to get a firm brace. The adjustment slots are just too far apart for me. And because I am largely using this canoe for fitness paddling with no pack, I can’t set the seat and foot brace for comfort and then trim with a pack.

Has anyone cut new slots in the side rails to have a finer adjustment on the foot brace? Or decided that was a bad idea? If so, any advice.

My other idea is to put pipe insulation on the foot brace to give it a higher diameter. Then I could put it in the forward slot and it would feel close. But the spongy insulation might feel wrong.

Thoughts?

I've been having a similar issue and plan on trying a couple dry bags...fill with water, adjust front and rear. That's the theory anyway.

True, I could do the dry bag trick but I’d rather keep the boat lighter and not have one more thing to deal with each time I want to paddle.

Consider installing Wenonah's Foot brace . A bit of an investment but it works well.

I do like the Wenonah design and may put one in the stern of my SR Q17. And I’ll go with that in the Sawyer if I can’t easily mod the existing brace. It’s supports are fiberglassed into the boat. So, to install the Wenonah I would have to work around that. But I bet that is possible. Maybe even attach the Wenonah tracks to the Sawyer supports.

How long are the Wenonah tracks?

If the footbrace in your Sawyer is similarly installed as the one in my Sawyer 222 the supports are just pieces of wood glassed into the hull. Easy to remove with a sharp razor and a little care.

I’ll take a look. I think mine are metal angles with one side glassed onto the side wall and the other side then has notches that hold the telescoping tube in place.

They are plastic angles.

The older Sawyers used aluminum angle iron for the braces, atleast my Autumn Mist did.
Which one time when I was giving it the beans slipped the bar out and sliced up the side of my bare foot nicely. Ouch.

Instead of pipe insulation find a hollow pool noodle, that's what I did for a bit. Firmer foam.