I am looking for good exercise and rowing interests me. I have a Sears 14' aluminum jon (flat bottom) boat. I live on a salt water river in New Jersey with my own dock and it is only 75' from my back door to the floating dock. I am thinking of adding a sliding seat as my feet are just short of bracing against the next seat base in the boat. I think the sliding seat will also help with the level and quality of exercise that I get. If I like it and use it this summer, I will then look into normal rowing gear. I do not want to invest much money until I am sure it is for me. Can anyone help me with advice and finding equipment i.e. seat & slider, oars? Used but good equipment would do the job just fine.

-- Raymond Syms (ray@raysyms.com), April 08, 2004

Answers

Check out Ed Norton's reply in "Two sliding seat rowing positions in Sea Pearl (Dan Lockwood, 2003-11-29)" He built one from a cast off rowing machine. Decent correctly sized oars on the other hand are less likely to be found as cast-offs. A local rowing club might be a good source for some used sculls.

As for the suitablilty of rowing a jon boat, the distance to the water isn't as important as what do you expect from this? If its just exercise, any boat will do. If its the thrill of speed through the water you may want to consider a different boat.

However before you invest the time and energy in building/buying a sliding seat, I also suggest you spend some time reading the threads on sliding seats. This topic has come up a lot and there is some useful information there. -Gary-

-- Gary Powell (gwpowell@hotmail.com), April 09, 2004.