Thompson Ranger steering problem

[Randy Barkley]

I have restored a DOA Thompson Ranger. It has mahagony gunnels and I think it is from the late 50's to early 60s. This was my first restore attempt. So, after 60 feet on planking, new decks, gunnels, seats, and stem repairs I have made 5 Michgan river paddles this year. The canoe when I first got it, did not have any seats or indications that seats were ever bolted onto the inner gunnal. So I have a 15 foot canoe with 51 ribs. The thwarts are at the 9th rib from the back and the 17th rib from the front. The back seat was placed by the 10-12 rib. The front seat is placed on the 16-13 rib from the front. I was careful, to place the thwarts back into the correct possition as in the orignal pre restored canoe. The problem that I have is the front paddler, can easily over paddle the rear paddler. The back guy, has to work like crazy to keep the canoe going straight down the river. There is no weight difference between myself and my fellow canoist. I think the seat are in the wrong place or perhaps if seats were ordered with the orginal canoe, they had different thwart set ups? Anyone have any idea what I did wrong?

Randy

 

[Dave Wermuth]

hmm

is it possible the paddler's technique is the cause? I paddled bow once and the canoe went toward the sstern rather than away from him. If you get my drift. I also in another canoe had stearage issues when the bow was too heavy. Could be that too.

 

[john hupfield]

Forrard seat about 4 ft back from the bow. If this seems relevent then move the aft seat back a bit. Try it as far back as you can kneel infront of it.
Of course I'm in no position to review paddling techniques but that may be relevent too.
John

 

[Randy Barkley]

I dont think it is a weight issue

The canoe is symmetrical in terms of materials for the bow and stern.... So, I don't think weight is an issue. I use a short paddle and my friend uses a longer length paddle. When I am in the stern, he over powers me. When I am in the bow, I over power him. So, it isn't a matter of paddle type or technique. My friend prefers to paddle on his left side and I prefer the right. As we both have the impression on performance, The canoe must not be off center or warped to the right or left. We also weigh the same so this isn't a weight issue either. From your reply, I assume my seat placement is not an obvious issue. I have not checked, but would an uneven rocker of the front versus the back make any issue?

Thanks for the help.

 

[Randy Barkley]

Thanks John, I can not move the front seat back as it currently is backing up to the front thwart. If I move the seat behind the thwart, and give a little room for feet, the seat would be almost in the middle of the canoe.

Randy

 

[Todd Bradshaw]

It sounds very much to me like the canoe is riding low in the bow. This can often tend to cause the bow to suddenly want to veer off to one side or the other and it takes a lot of leverage to correct for it. An awful lot of a canoe's underwater footprint is basically there to make it float and support weight on the water and comparitively, very little of it is making it track. The stems at either end are the parts that are making most of that contribution. If you have a situation where the bow stem is riding deeper than the stern stem, any side-to-side tilt of the hull in the water may make the bow start carving a turn and it may be a real bear to try to correct this imbalance from the stern seat.

The first thing I would do is probably to see about checking your fore-and-aft trim. Sit in the boat in the water and have somebody take a profile picture to see how it looks. Then maybe take a 50 lb. weight (a couple water cubes, loaded packs, rocks, etc.) out and move the weight forward or backward on the bottom and see how it affects the handling. If more weight in the back of the boat fixes the problem and the canoe starts to handle better, then it's most likely going to boil down to moving the seats for a proper fix.

If you can't move either seat to make the whole thing a bit more tail-heavy, then you'll need to get creative. One approach might be to slightly deepen (by maybe 1/2" or so) the depth of the stern stem or keel in that aft area near the stern stem. There have been a lot of canoes and kayaks designed so that their back end tracks slightly better than their front end to make them steer better with less need for stern-man-applied leverage. Some folks call it a "rudder stern" and it can be very effective. Hopefully, it won't come to this - but if you can't tame the wild beast with seat location, it might be the easiest way to initiate a tracking change with a minimum of added weight and materials.

 

[Dave Wermuth]

crazy idea

Here's a crazy idea and maybe not feasible. What if you took the seats out and tried paddling it backwards by just kneeling in it? I agree, it sounds like trim. But I think you said it only goes to one direction depending on who's in bow?

 

[Randy Barkley]

crazy idea

I like this. Perhaps I have the canoe going backwards. I'll remove the seats, then play around with different positions to get the balance right. Based on this outcome, and the position of the thwarts, I should have the bow and stern figure out and the positions of the seat. ..... Generally speaking, on a canoe with 51 ribs, where would one expect the seats to be placed? If someone can give me an example from an existing canoe of any size, I can pro rate it to mine.

Thanks

 

[Dave Osborn]

I have one!

Randy,
I have a 16' Thompson (Ranger I think) that is waiting for pick up. It has 52 ribs. I will photograph and post the seat and thwart positions this evening.
Also check to see if the bow seat is approximately 3 inches below under the inwale.
I have not paddled it, but the positions are from the factory.

An overall photo is on this thread.... http://forums.wcha.org/showthread.php?p=24553#post24553

Check back this evening for seat and thwart positions...

 

[Todd Bradshaw]

Might I suggest that rather than counting ribs, you actually measure the distance from a fixed point (like the tip of the decks or extreme ends of the canoe) to the seat bars? For a symmetrical hull, the normal rule of thimb that's often used for planning purposes is that a paddler's weight is concentrated in the area about where his forward seat bar is. If you have two paddlers of similar weight and you locate the front bars of both seats the same distance from their respective ends of the boat, the result is usually pretty level trim. If you want to build in a bit of a fudge factor (allowing for a bit more flexibility in paddler weights) shift one or both of them aft a little bit.

 

[Dave Osborn]

Here it is both ways.......
Photos show rib counts.
Stern tip to seat bar - 32 inches
Bow tip to seat bar - 52 inches

 

[Randy Barkley]

Seat positions

Dave, thanks for the picture. What a great job you did in the restore. I have a third thwart on my canoe. It is close to the deck. In looking at the picture and all the great comments. I understand my problem and the way forward. I have the seats in the wrong position and the bow and stern mixed up. I will take out the seats an confirm the location via a nice paddle on a local river. I will then make up new seats and put them in the correct position. I will also post my pre-restore, first attempt, and final configuration. Thanks for all the pointers. It has saved me a lot of time and got me back on track!

Randy

 

[Splinter]

After that

Once you have the seats where they belong, make sure to trim the canoe in the water. When the paddlers are in the seats, the canoe should be level. You can easily mark the bow and stern with a small thin marking tape where it would be measured against it's place on the water surface, then add weight to the end that is too high. That should help a lot. It also helps if both paddlers recognize their drawing strength and practice matching their power.

 

[pklonowski]

Before that...

I find it easier to have somebody who's not in the canoe tell me whether it's bow or stern heavy, or trimmed nicely... I can easily adjust the trim by moving the lunch bag, get immediate feedback, adjust again if needed, and not spend time with tape or other gizmos...

fwiw