Hi All,
Does anyone know the length of the thwart for the Old Town Discovery 164?
History: I was gifted an Old Town Discovery 164 with cracked aluminum gunwales and a missing thwart. The gunwales are cracked near where the original thwart would’ve been attached, so the boat is a bit wider than it’s supposed to be and I can’t get a good measurement. I’ll be replacing the gunwales with ash soonish, looking forward to posting that project on the forum here.
Thanks!
You might want to try contacting Old Town directly. I have no personal experience with the company but as recently as 20 years ago they had a really solid reputation for going out of their way to provide information to individuals owning older canoes that they built, including details about the identification, specifications, and date of manufacture of boats made as much as 100 years ago. I always found such stories to be pretty remarkable. I think that any company which is willing to look back at build records from so far in the past “just to be nice” would likely also be willing and able to look up the specified length of your missing thwart. However, Old Town was bought out by a bigger company - Johnson Outdoors - and that might mean that in recent years they’ve been forced to abandon their old ways of customer service. But asking them might be worth a try .
Thanks! I had sent them an email as well as posting here. But I’ll try to get them on the phone, thanks for the push.
Old Town responded to my email about this question, pasting their response below for future reference:
Thank you for reaching out. The Discovery 164 originally came with a 33.5" yoke and a 32" thwart. If replacing the 32" thwart, the 32.5" will still work fine in the same location with out changing the shape of the canoe.
Old Town is still delivering on their reputation it seems @Guideboatguy_II
Buy a thwart or make one out of white ash and cut it length. Simple.
ppine, I’m not sure what you’re referring to it being, “Simple”. Like I said, in the original post, I didn’t know what the length of the thwart should be. Because of the cracked aluminum gunwales the boat measures at 36 inches wide where the missing thwart is supposed to be attached. How am I to cut it to size if I don’t know what the size is supposed to be. I’m new to the canoe world, let alone repairing them. Now that I know the correct length of the thwart, yes, it’s simple to cut one to size or make one.
How would you figure out the right length of the thwart in my situation? Happy to learn.
j-hare, you asked the proper question, and it’s good to see that Old Town was able to give you the answer. The suggestion about cutting the new thwart to length and being done with the problem was an answer that totally missed the point. Most people already know how to use a tape measure and a saw, but determining the proper length of a canoe thwart can’t be done just by looking at a broken and thwart-less canoe.
If you know what the maximum beam is of your canoe, then repair the gunwale to that spec. Then cut the thwart to fit. Any thwart you buy will be longer than what you need. You have some leeway in the finished beam of the boat.
You guys are making it sound all mysterious and hard to figure out. It isn;t.
So, ppine, it seems like what you are saying is in order to figure out the thwart length I should first repair the gunwale, then the boat will be the correct width to measure the thwart. Is that correct?Thanks for that special knowledge, I didn’t know that. That’s a little different than you’re first comment saying, “Buy a thwart or make one out of white ash and cut it length. Simple.” It wasn’t clear to me, as a novice, that what you meant was, “first fix the gunwales, then you’ll be able to ascertain the thwart size.” To be honest, it is a bit of a mystery to me, that’s why I’m reaching out to this community.
J.hare,
Now you get the concept. Repairs are always a step wise process. Think about the order of how you are going to proceed. Gunwale first, then the thwart.