Larry Cable wrote:

My take is still that the thwart is the best way to go. It actually
gives better back support and it lowers your center of gravity.
Best of all, it is out of the way of your paddle strokes. It does
eat up a lot of room, not an issue here where we run mainly day
trips, and I don't have mine so that it can be removed, although I
don't see why you couldn't mount it with the same type strap system
as the seat.

Have you seen the pillow-style thwart used in the Caracal and Tomcat?
It detracts little from gear storage space. Personally I don't think
thwarts are as comfortable as the early-1990s Lynx chair. When I did
the Escalante, I loaned out my Lynx, and put my spare old-Lynx chair
in a 2-person Maravia Challenger for myself. That's because I knew
the Challenger thwart is too uncomfortable for an 8-day expedition.
AIRE's pillow-thwart is a bit more comfortable than that one.

By the way, I recommend against the round-your-boat cam strap that
AIRE documents, expecially for low water, because it can get trapped
in rocks, causing a flip or other potentially dangerous situations.

Do you have the new Lynx with the increased rise and narrow front end?

Yes. I now believe that it's superior to the old hull design for
running big hydraulics. It slices & dices waves better, and takes on
less water. Its hull speed is a tad faster, and stability also seems
somewhat improved, due to aforementioned slicing, but perhaps more so
because of a more hydrodynamic side-tube profile. In other words,
when big waves slosh over the side, they don't exert as much force.

I loaned out the new Lynx on a Middle Fork Salmon trip last July,
and a rookie took it thru Impassible Canyon at moderately high flow
with only one swim, early on in a nothing rapid.

On the downside, I found that when running ultra-low-water Camp creek,
http://creekin.net/camp.htm
the back end got caught more in rocks. That could have been because
my seat was too far back. I've since moved it forward, but haven't
done any ultra-low-water creeks since then.

BTW, two great days of creeking on the Cumberland Plateau...

Sounds great, I'm moving!