What are drop in seats and what do they do as an adaption?
Drop-In Seats are important adaptations for those with limited mobility.
There are several versions of drop in seats available to adaptive sailors. The type a seat a sailor chooses to use is up to the individual and based on several factors, including position on the boat, type of boat, and individual sailor stability and mobility.
1. A rigid seat attacehd to a metal bar, fixed inside the cockpit of the sailboat. Using this type of seat the sailor can easily rotate across the boat through tacks or to manage weight distribution. Oftentimes, they have seat and chest belts to prevent the sailor from falling out.
2. A flat bench style drop in steat dropped into the cockpit of the sailboat. These seats create a bench sailors can use to move across the boat when needed.
Needed on most adaptive keelboats, these seats are easy to install and remove, and make for a great addition to any adaptive sailing program. Often, drop in seats are used with stability bars to create a system the sailor is comfortable using.
Sarah Skeels can be seen below using an drop in seat as the skipper. Cindy Walker is pictured below as the crew, and is using a bench style drop in seat:
