The boat sling group was lucky enough to have Joanna around to test our prototypes and give us feedback. The boat sling worked, but we have 3 major takeaways to consider for further designs.
- The metal buckles cannot hit the carbon fiber shells. They can be covered with a sheepskin sheath, but if Joanna unbuckles them she need to hold both sides or one could hit a boat, especially if she’s putting the boat back on the racks that are lower than the one we’ve been practicing with.
- The pressure on the shoulder can be a problem and we need to address how to cushion it. The racks at CRI cradle the boat and although that would clearly be the preference in terms of the boat, it isn’t very conducive to a shoulder strap.
- We need to add silicon to the most recent iteration (which we couldn’t really test bc we couldn’t protect the boat from the metal buckles) to ensure that the boat is held tightly by its strap and the strap connected to Joanna.
Overall, it was encouraging to see Joanna walking while using our design. She said something like, “yeah this is great!” before she had to walk backwards, so I think we’re in a good place overall.