Fighting chair for boating big gamefish that is energy efficient and ergometric

Abstract

A fighting chair for boating big gamefish that is energy efficient and ergometric. The major advantages of the Energy Efficient Fighting Chair over prior fighting chairs is: 1 It allows better use of all major muscle groups in fighting a fish, especially the strongest muscle group, the leg muscles. 2 the design allows a significantly greater amount of line to be recovered per stroke of the rod. 3 The gimbaled rod butt pivot, rest, is highly adjustable and can have more than one pivot and gimbal installed so the rod position can be adjusted to accommodate differences in where the fish is positioned, the geometry of the rod and angler's physiology.

1 . A fighting chair for boating big gamefish that is energy efficient and ergometric. The major advantages of the Energy Efficient Fighting Chair over prior fighting chairs is;
 1 It allows better use of all major muscle groups in fighting a fish, especially the strongest muscle group, the leg muscles.   2 The design allows a significantly greater amount of line to be recovered per stroke;   3 The gimballed rod butt pivot, rest, is highly adjustable and can have more than pivot installed so the rod position can be adjusted to accommodate differences in where the fish is positioned;
 We will discuss each of these separately. There are several unique features of the Energy Efficient Fighting Chair that contribute to the efficiency of the chair. The first is using horizontal frame rails pivoting on wheels as the main structural element rather than the vertical post with a tube as in a conventional fixed chair. The frame rails provide a mounting for the footrest, the gimbals that support the rod end and provides a track for the sliding seat that rolls along the rail. The angler's weight is supported by the chair and wheels so all the force from the angler's leg muscles can be used to apply force to the line. The footrest pivots to allow the foot to have the best angle with the leg. The seat is allowed to roll freely on the track. The whole aim of fighting a fish is to apply force to the rod, which transfers the force to the line. The gimbal that supports the rod can be fixed at virtually any point on the rail between the footrest and seat. The range of vertical adjustment of the pivot point is from almost at the deck level to almost the seating level. Generally, most prior gimbals had limited or no adjustment and were fixed to the seat. More than one gimbal can be installed on the frame to accommodate different rods and anticipated escape paths for the fish. The gimbal position may be adjusted while fighting a fish. Reasons why adjustment of the gimbal position includes angler physiology, rod size and shape and whether the line will go vertical into the water or be horizontal. Several tracks with rollers that fit over an existing seat had been patented. These required an existing chair and were limited in motion by the size of the existing seat. These seats also required an expensive fixed chair and did not have the range of adjustment on gimbal position that the high efficiency chair has. U.S. Pat. No. 6,089,652 describes a fighting system using a seat mounted on a pivot that supplies motion to and from the gimbal by rotating about a pivot point near the deck. There is some ability to move the gimbal location but not as much as provided by the High Efficiency Chair. This chair also changes the elevation of the angler as it pivots to provide movement of the anglers torso. On a large stroke it may be difficult to return to the original position. The structure shown on this patent is far more massive and heavy than the High Efficiency Chair. The massive structure would limit portability far more than the high efficiency chair. 
   An advantage that comes from the geometry of the Energy Efficient fighting chair is a rod stroke can be made through a greater angle than with a conventional fighting chair. This results in significantly greater line recovery per stroke than with conventional chairs. This feature would aid in bringing in fish rapidly since experience has shown it is easier to keep a fish moving than to start and stop with slow strokes. This would significantly reduce mortality of fish released in the increasing popular “catch and release” sportfishing since the major cause of death is exhaustion from a prolonged fight.