The challenge with fitting Greenland kayaks is that they need to be tight to perform properly, but they can’t be so tight that you risk getting trapped if you need to do a wet exit. (This wasn’t an issue for arctic kayak hunters because a wet exit in 33° water with bearskin pants on just wasn’t a survivable option.)
The only way I’ve found to get this right is to fit the masik (that wide deck beam that goes over your thighs) once the kayak is almost complete.
I’m doing this in blue jeans here because I’m already confident on my sizing, but generally you want to put on your heaviest and thickest paddling gear and put a pad in the bottom of the boat and try sliding in and out. The ideal fit is where your knees are almost, or just barely brushing against the masik as you slide in and out. This gives you a safe kayak that’s still reasonably tight.
Next I fit the foot brace by placing my fist behind between the deck beam behind me and the small of my back (about 3”), flexing my toes forward to where they would be beneath the skin and marking the location. It seems like there’s no way this could possibly be the right location, but speaking from experience if you go any further back you risk being too tight in the boat. You can always screw a small piece of wood onto the front of that foot brace that you can easily reach in and remove later, but you can’t make it any longer!
This deck beam gets mitered and pegged in place, and just for fun I screwed a little angled piece to the front of it to see if that feels more comfortable. This isn’t actually a great idea because many of the more advanced Greenland rolls are performed by sliding further forward in the cockpit, which this would prevent. I’ll probably end up removing it.
I did a little more work on the planning for the skeg installation, although I’m still not sure if I’m going to actually put the skeg in this particular kayak until I see how it paddles without one. I’m curious to see if I can notice a difference in glide from the slot drag.
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