: I did look. An interesting design, but didn't appear ideal... as
: potentially heavy,

You can do quite a bit of lightening.

: and potentially not up to the use or abuse
: that some expect foot braces to take.

If you abuse them more than standing the kayak vertical in the surf, bow stuck in the sand, I'd be worried more about bodily injury. An 80+ kg paddler and no problems. How much stronger do you want them to be? They survive perfectly well when doing that.

I would expect any paddler's feet would have slipped off the side pedals and they'd have slipped into the cockpit and be standing on the bulkhead, NOT a good place to be when the kayak inverts and in the surf.

: And, in a Yost style SOF,
: I'm not sure the 1 x 3/4 inch keelson of cedar, redwood or other
: light wood is really up to the repeated torquing of an
: aggressive paddler.

So? Reinforce. Use diagonals. If the keelson won't take it I suspect the rest of the hull will suffer too with side mounted pedals.

Incidentally, the stress on the keelson will be at two points about 1/2 metre apart. If you can break the keel pressing against a pedal a tenth of that width out from the keel I suspect you need a carbon/kevlar kayak with steel reinforcing.

Just what pressure-to-break for the commercial plastic pedals?

Alex