GCI Outdoor SitBacker Adjustable Canoe Seat with Back Support

I purchased two of these seats around a month ago to use on my 14 foot canoe. My canoe has built in plastic bench seats as is that just aren't that comfortable. With these seats I was so much more comfortable and able to spend much more time on the water.Here are some highlights of the seats:The seat sits wide and is fully adjuustable.Set up time: 30 seconds- literally just 2 clips and tighten down. extremely solid.lightweight and easy to carryhigh quality material, feels sturdypockets also located on the back of the seat.I would definitely recommend this seat to anyone in the market. Overall, very comfortable and durable seat that will provide comfort all day.**Please select yes if you found this review helpful**

I think the seat would be comfortable enough as the padding feels great, but I won't know for awhile.The straps will not fit around my canoe seat. They are a couple of inches too short. I searched all over the internet and found two things. 1. This is a very common complaint about this seat and has been posted by many people on many websites for a long time. I assume the manufacturer must know about it and has chosen not to fix it. 2. There is only one place I can find the SitBacker extension straps, and that happens to be the GCI website. I've searched all kinds of other outdoor stores and Amazon without luck. The straps are 10 bucks on their website, but have an additional 8 or 9 dollar shipping cost. That's ridiculous. When I spend this much money on a seat, I don't expect to have to drop 20 more dollars to make it fit. I also don't expect to have to rig it with bungees, but that looks like that will be my only option.

This seat was purchased for a trip to Canada to be used on bench seat in a 17’ fishing boat. The seat was comfortable and gave good back support, but by the end of the second day the split seat had started to separate and by the middle of the third day the fabric had failed entirely (see photo). The split seat is designed to flex in a molded canoe seat but would not be needed on a flat canoe or regular boat seat, and the straps could not be used on the solid seat platform of the 17’ semi-v hull aluminum boat from the lodge. I used the seat the rest of the week, and my back support was good but the seat bottom was worthless. I am six foot tall and weigh 235 but apparently I must have been too heavy, which was frustrating.

I have been paddling canoes for almost 60 years. I used to sneer at people who used canoe seats. Until I got a little older and the cumulative affects of work gave me the back miseries. My wife got this for me and now I would not canoe without it. Velcro straps secure it to the canoes seat. The back position is adjustable with straps and the back fold down when not in use. It is possible that this seat may not fit some oversized canoe seats.Bracing yourself against the seat back may actually make your paddling more efficient.Well made, I would expect this to last 20+ years

Use this on a 9 day trip canoeing from lake to lake across Isle Royale and every canoeing trip after. It is adjustable so you can lean way back and put your feet up if just drifting along, or angled to give you support when digging in deep fighting to make headway upstream/against a stiff wind. IT was a HUGE help when fishing. It gave you support when casting or pulling in the "big one". The seat STAYS where you adjust it. The split seat design allows it to conform to the plastic molded seats or lay flat on the custom plywood seats I made for a canoe that had none. The cushion kept my butt from getting sore and it allowed me to fish for hours longer then some of my friends.The heavy straps and buckles that attach it to (around) the seat can be made to fit almost every seat I've seen and have never unbuckled unless I wanted it to. It's "stay closed" strap held the seat up and out of the way during portages and while on the canoe rack traveling hundreds of miles down the road. I even use the seat while doing "white water" canoeing. It has given me the support I needed to lean back (to rudder) make some fast steering and only has hindered forward travel when we were forced along a bank with over-hanging trees (which snagged on it). A "MUST BUY" for anyone who owns a canoe!

This is a well made seat and there probably isn't one that's of higher quality. That said, it was useless to me in the rear of a 16' Wenonah Canoe that I took for a week into the Boundary Waters in MN. The taper of the stern meant that the SitBacker could not fit completely on the canoe seat...it was difficult to position it so that I could even get the seat-back in an upright position. Some minor design changes could have accounted for this common issue...not sure why the manufacturer ignored it. A couple other annoyances were to be found. One was the "portage lock" which was a good idea but in practice was poorly implemented. It rarely stayed locked on a long portage. Also, when entering the canoe, there was no good way to keep the seat-back upright while I pushed off from shore and got settled in. Particularly frustrating on days when winds were high and you had to get underway quickly from shore. This thing would work fine in the front of a canoe. It would also make a fine stadium seat. In the end this was a mediocre piece of equipment for my needs that did not perform to my expectations. In other situations it might be great. Just not mine.

Great seats strong and versatile.

Very good and easy to use. Mainly used for resting back onto, rather than whilepaddling - but it offers good support.

Excellent

This is a great comfortable seat for the canoeist. It is a back saver and adds enjoyment to the entire trip. However it does not fit very well on to the rear seat due to the shorter width of the seat. In just one trip alone, the cloth was ripped on both sides of the back rest that comes in contact with the metal gunnels of the canoe. I am now going to move the rear seat a couple of inches towards the front so there will be more room for the back rest to tilt backwards without rubbing against the gunnels. Otherwise I would have given it an easy 5 stars. I like the map compartment on the back of each seat. My friend who complained of a back pain on the previous trip was very happy that these seats eliminated that problem.

This thing is as useless as can be. It offers absolutely NO back support, and there's absolutely NO WAY to lean back on this thing - unlike many other options of 'stadium seats.'Now - MAYBE - this might work for some people for the probably intended use as a canoe seat or whatever it is intended for - but if you are even THINKING about using it for anything else - FORGET IT!For one - this thing has such a tiny base - that if you try to lean back in it, there is nothing on the bottom to hold it and you up. I'm probably not describing this well, but if it extended longer towards your knees, then there would be some structure to push against to keep the front down so that the back would be supported when you lean back.And another VERY irritating thing about this junk is that the back never stays up. Every time you want to sit down in it, you have to lift the back up from horizontal position and awkwardly bend over and slide your butt in first to squeeze into it.This thing is so awful, it's one of a several hundred things I've bought from Amazon that I'm going to return just because it's USELESS! I've not bothered to return 30 other things that didn't work for me, but at least they were useful for something.