Thigh strap/backband integration

Haven’t seen things done quite this way, so thought I’d share an epiphany I had while helping a friend put a backband on his boat today. Haven’t been on the water with it, but front lawn simulation looks promising.
Not a lot different from attaching the backband and thigh straps to the D-ring separately, but it feels a lot better to me because when you pressure your thigh straps for left/right control, you also draw your backband tighter for better fore/aft control.
Also very nice to be able to pull on your thigh straps and move your seat forward and backward without any fiddling–much easier to get an ideal fit. SbE

Just be careful with that set up, as there is not much to keep the thigh straps tight or snug to the boat (except the bungee behind seat) when you exit the boat so it could becomes a little bit of a entrapment issue. Just a thought.

That’s a good point to recognize. The additional play in the thigh straps is minimal though. Certainly there is some, but it comes down to about 3 inches or so once your back pressure is off; as long as you’ve got your straps on tight that won’t quite allow for a wrap around the ankle.

I’ve done this on a few boats and, for some reason, integrating the two seems to make it ~impossible for me to roll the boat back up once I’ve flipped. I think the root cause is that both backband and thigh straps end up having to be drawn tighter to take up the inherent stretch and slack of the material, thus they become too tight to have enough range of motion to complete the roll.

if you’re not rolling the boat, I can’t see a good reason not to do this.