Had little mishap sailing my Explorer and busted up the portage thwart.
I kind of like having no thwart cluttering up the middle of the boat. I can throw a gunnel up on one shoulder to carry it from the truck to the river most places but I know there are some more rugged putins where it would be nice to have the boat centered up over me.
Then I saw JSaults pictures from his “Outfitting a Royalex Guide” thread. He’s got a nice portage strap set up. I’ve used those on a Mohawk Solo 14 and they seem to work pretty well on boats that size. They’re light and roll up out of the way when you don’t need them.
Anybody ever tried one on a bigger (16’-17’) royalex canoe?
What about hull support?
I would be afraid to eliminate the portage yoke if there wasn’t another thwart very close by. The middle of the boat wants to spread apart at the gunnels when the ends are forced up. With no thwart/yoke there you would be getting lots of hull flex through rough waters. Anyone else experience this?
havn’t noticed it yet
but you could be right.
We’ll see.
Where
can I find pics or a catalog with the “strap yoke” in it?
My Grove Street link
Scroll down past the pics of Topher stunt-poling to see my rip-off of a Mowhawk web thwart.
I imbedded spare plates from SS U-bolts in the vebbing assemblys to distribute the stress, and used 3/16" bolts. My theory is that 2x3/16 is stronger than 1x1/4. Unless there is a cascading failure. I have no ultimate destructive failure tests planned.
http://www.grovestreet.com/jsp/picview.jsp?album=82567
Is Mowhawk still operating their accessiry business?
Jim