Missing dinghy seat

[a22dphd]

The sailboat I purchased came with a 2011-ish West Marine dinghy that is missing its seat. Evidently, West Marine doesn't actually manufacture its products and cannot tell me exactly which tender maker actually made my dinghy, so I have no way to track down a replacement seat for it.

Would like advice on how to create or find a seat for rowing purposes.

[Sea Dreaming]

We don't have the same boat, but our dinghy came with a wooden board that had been shaped to fit and routed out on the underside to fit the dinghy seat brackets.

[sailjumanji]

I think Defender sells them..

[Privilege]

I use a cooler as a seat. It also neatly stores the fuel tank and anchor.

[a64pilot]

Have you tried one? We decided very quickly we didn't like ours and never use it

[SunnySky]

I used to row an old Achilles inflatable a lot and the two most important factors to row reasonably well in my experience, acknowledging there is no comparison to rowing a hard dingy of course (but pretty reasonable, especially with benefits of storeability and stability for diving...) was:
Sitting on a big fender with good footblocks ergonomically optimal for your body/leg length rowing was using much more of you full body than possible with a standard seat. In the case of my ~12' dingy the Polyform A-4 buoy/fender (20.5"-27" size) and a couple blocks epoxied onto the wooden board floor it worked well. Rowing against 25-30 knots of wind was a bit of work but very doable.. I would assume using pvc/hypalon glue on an airfloor or splashzone on an aluminum bottom rib to secure footblocks would be as effective...
Using real oars in real oar locks, as opposed to the rinky dink "oars" sold with current inflatables. The old Achilles actually had wooden blocks that were hypalon glued down with additional hypalon securing them to the tubes so you could actually use nice long traditional wooden oars.. Something along the lines of Sea-Dog Oar Top Mount Lock Sockets mounted into blocks of epoxy soaked wood which is then glued onto the dingy tubes in an ergonomic position with proper surface prep and distribution of load across a modest area and extra pvc/hypalon as appropriate to reinforce would help a lot...
Not exactly the question you asked, but may prove helpful for you :-)
Best regards,

[Sandero]

I have a very nice GRP seat for you... if it fits it's yours... I can send a pic with dimensions.... It comes from an aquapro boat with storage cubby inside/under the seat.

It fit into some sort of interior hand hold fitting but I think if thw width is OK you can fabricate some way to secure it.

You pay shipping and handing from NYC

[Bill O]

Hard to see your original pic of the dinghy seat mounts, but typically the "slug" at the end of the glued down tube attachment will fit in an awning track.

So an easy fix would be 2 short pieces of awning track attached under the board (wooden/plastic), then see if you like like the hard seat.

Bill O.

[rwidman]

Originally Posted by a22dphd

The sailboat I purchased came with a 2011-ish West Marine dinghy that is missing its seat. Evidently, West Marine doesn't actually manufacture its products and cannot tell me exactly which tender maker actually made my dinghy, so I have no way to track down a replacement seat for it.

Would like advice on how to create or find a seat for rowing purposes.

In many cases, the seat is structural so I suggest replacing it with an original seat.

I don' know how you determined that West Marine doesn't know what manufacturer made your dinghy, but I'll bet if you contact their customer service people and give them any numbers from the dinghy, they can find out and probably order the seat for you as well.

I'm not talking about going into the store and asking a part time cashier, I'm talking about calling their corporate headquarters on the phone.

[GordMay]

Originally Posted by rwidman

... I'll bet if you contact their customer service people and give them any numbers from the dinghy, they can find out and probably order the seat for you as well.

I'm not talking about going into the store and asking a part time cashier, I'm talking about calling their corporate headquarters on the phone.

Or
Select your dinghy, here ➥ https://www.westmarine.com/inflatable-boats
Then, click on “Owner's Manual/Replacement Parts List” (bottom left of page)

[rwidman]

Originally Posted by GordMay

Or
Select your dinghy, here ➥ https://www.westmarine.com/inflatable-boats
Then, click on “Owner's Manual/Replacement Parts List” (bottom left of page)

Yep, that should work.