Thwart thoughts

[samb]

I’m building a 14 foot cedar canvas canoe. It’s going to be a solo boat so I will be placing the seat near the centre. Because of this I will be having a removable carrying yoke.
Do you think I’d be best to put two thwarts symmetrically spaced along the length or put a single thwart just behind the seat? Or maybe two asymmetrical thwarts?
Thanks
Sam

 

[Michael Grace]

Old Town's very popular Lightweight/Trapper/Fifty Pounder usually had only one thwart, and a great many of these canoes end up looking like peanuts - pinched in at the thwart and relaxed before and after it. So if I were in your shoes I'd put in two thwarts, and it seems that for optimal paddler positioning it might be best to have them installed asymmetrically. When restoring Old Town 50 Pounders, I've sometimes replaced the single thwart with two, and been very happy with the result.

 

[Howie]

This is interesting. Several years ago I restored a 13' 50 Pounder that needed new inner rails, and I found that using two thwarts nicely corrected the 'pinched-in' look that Michael mentions. And happily, I found that the two thwarts make the canoe much easier to lift by myself. I've been thinking about converting the 13' footer I'm working on now into a two-thwart'er... and I do believe I will! Though since I plan to paddle from the front seat (and facing the rear seat) perhaps the thwart positions will be asymmetrical as Michael suggests as paddling with my legs dangling over a thwart was... uncomfortable.

 

[samb]

Thanks for this Michael and Howie. I think I'll probably use two symmetrical thwarts at roughly thirds.

Another question:working out how much planking I need, is a reasonable estimate to multiply the longest rib length in inches by the length in inches and divide by 144 to give the area in square feet?
So 52.5 x 168 /144=61.25 square feet for a 14foot boat

 

[patrick corry]

Just for the sake of discussion, here is a Stewart River 14' Solitude with it's thwart arrangement:

The only drawback I see is the difficulty of single-handed carrying/portaging. An alternative might be to keep a center thwart and add 2 quarter thwarts as in my 15' Island Falls Willow, seen here during the 2023 Assembly on the North Bay of Upper St. Regis lake. I don't find that the center thwart is in the way, but then the forward edge of the

seat is not as close to center as in the Solitude.

 

[samb]

Thanks Patrick.
I'll be going for something like the solitude as I like to paddle from the middle. I plan a clamp on yoke