The problem has been around as long as people have been paddling K2s. That annoying feeling that one of you is not sitting in the middle of the boat, and therefore leaning it to one side. It has been blamed for plenty of bad performances and has even been known to split K2 partnerships, in a flurry of expletives!
Sitting in a K1 is a very personal thing. Everyone has a "strong side" and a weak side". Often for a right hander, the right is the strong side, and the paddler will choose to brace on the right and if the boat has to be leant onto its side to slide down a rock face or weir, it is invariably leant on the strong side.
While a K1 paddler can try his or her damnest to sit upright in the seat, there quickly develops a comfortable position, which can feel upright, but is in actual fact, just a comfortable set-up of knees, hips and torso that might actually be leaning one way or the other.
So in a K2, one naturally takes that comfortable posture into the boat. What if there is a problem and one feels that the boat is leaning the one way, while the other feels it is tilting the other way?
In training take time to sort it out. One doesn't have time in a race to start shifting seating. Sometimes, the boat can take a solid blow from a rock and move the seats, which will force you to stop and readjust the seats. But here are some ideas to get the problems fixed, before you start the race.
Go for foam
The point of contact between the seat and the hull is so important. Sometimes the tiniest bubble on the glass will cause a node of pressure on the hull that is asymmetrical.
So it is a great idea to stick some closed cell foam (the dark grey stuff that butt pads are made from), in a 5cm wide strip along the front and back sections of the bottom of the seat. Not only will this ensure that the contact between the seat and the hull is uniform but it also stops it slipping around and is fantastic for preventing the damaging wear under the seat caused by contact with rocks.
Tip. Shop for foam yourself. Any decent foam manufacturer will sell you a 2 meter by one meter slab of this foam for about the cost of two butt pads. It has countless uses, like roof rack padding, shoulder pads for portaging etc etc.
Line em up
Most boats have a pencil line drawn down the centre of the hull, which the boat builder uses to line up the position of the seat pins.
Use that as a guide, where it is visible in the gap in the seat that houses the seat-pin bar and wing nut. It's easy to check whether the line at the bottom of the boat and the gap in the seat base are parallel. As a backup, you can measure the gap between the top of each side of the seat and the hull seam line if there is any doubt.
Test it
Everyone is different and there is a good chance that even with seats scientifically set up you will still not feel 100 percent comfortable.
The rule of thumb here is simple. Move the seat towards the side that you feel the boat is leaning. So, if you feel your partner is leaning the boat to the right, instead of inching your way into the left of the boat to compensate, move your seat slightly to the right. Slightly! Because a millimetre or two will make a difference.
Make your mark
Once you have settled it, and it feels comfortable, mark it with koki or pencil by outlining the seat position on the hull. In time, the pressure on the foam and the tight wing nut will help to make a pretty strong bond on the hull and the seats shouldn't move much at all.
Remember that after a tough portage (like Devil's Cauldron) there's a better than even chance that the seats will have moved. If you have an outline marked on the hull, it is an easy and quick part of your put-in drill to make sure that your seats are in the right place.
Some people go to the extreme of actually gluing the seat, but that tends to be rather final and once you have fired your partner for a far handsomer, short-legged alternative, it can get tricky to move the seats.
Comfort issues
Legs
Remember that your leg position directly affects your stability. For rivers and in situations where you and your partner are twitching around in the boat, try to lower your legs, even if it means moving your seat back a notch.
Seat foam
This can be quite a contradiction, as the general belief is the pain of sciatica or "numb bum" is caused by the nerves being pinched against the hard seat. But the, others will tell you that it's the soft foam that causes this compression against the nerves and actually clogs up the seating set-up.
While a hard, flat, smooth seat is great for sprinters, who need to twist and slide around their seat, in a river, it does help to have a layer of foam on the seat. Not only for comfort, but it helps prevent shifting your weight around the seat when being buffeted by waves, or jolted by rocks.
Height of the seat
A higher seat is more unstable, but allows for greatest leverage and therefore speed.
Everything comes at a price! Lower seats are more stable, and don't need paddles that are as long.
A cunning solution
Oscar Chalupsky uses a very cunning system to make sure seats don't shift around in a river. Most seats are made with a length of aluminium running under the seat. It is easy to attach another strip of this aluminium (or get the seat made up by the boat builder) that will run out of the back of the seat.
All that is required is to glass a small U-shaped piece of aluminium onto the bottom of the hull behind the seat that this bar slides into. That way, no matter what a battering the boat takes on portages or in rapids, the seats will never move!
Now the difficult part - deal with it!
Often a situation will arise in a race, when even the most experienced, well drilled K2 crews start to feel out of balance. It can be a source of real frustration, and one feels that a lot of energy is being wasted. There are two steps to dealing with the problem.
Firstly, ask your partner, diplomatically, if he or she is comfortable. Don't try the classic abrasive "Come on! You're sitting skew!" comment, because that isn't going to help at all.
Step Two. If he or she is comfortable, then you have to deal with it. Don't keep shifting around the seat, or griping. Settle as best you can and contribute to the collective effort. Often, by focussing on your stroke, and body posture, rather than which way you feel the boat is lying, will lead to the problem sorting itself out really fast!