C-Forum

I just picked up a like new Dagger Ovation. The boat has probably only been paddled a handfull of times but it appears to be modified.

I thought the Ovation was supposed to be a symetrical boat, but on mine the front thwart is 2" narrower than the rear (about 23" vs 25"), resulting in an asymetrical shape.

Are there any Ovation owners who can give me true specs of the boat? Is this how it's supposed to be or has someone been experimenting?

Doug, the Ovation is asymmetrical. Here are the factory specs:

http://www.dagger.com/product.asp?BoatT ... BoatID=207

Hope this helps. Terry

I finally got around to measuring my girlfriend's boat. The thwarts are both 24" (longer side of the bevels). The boat looks pretty symmetrical to me. If there are obvious visible differences between the two ends, somebody's been messin' with it.

the thwarts can be the same width and the hull can be asymmetrical. the site says bow is a bit deeper than the stern, I think that the bow is a bit narrower than the stern, at the water line.
a friend paddles one, and likes it, she hasn't modified it al all.
cheers
-isaac

The boat hull is assymetrical.

Having owned two Ovations (one still stacked with other boats in the garage), I can tell you it's definitely asymmetrical. But not that much different from bow to stern. In fact, my first Ovation I outfitted backwards--somehow while outfitting it I spun the boat and, because its asymmetry is so slight, didn't notice until after I had glued the seat. Oddly enough, I ended trying it out that way and liked the boat just fine. It didn't seem to matter much. Even when I got my second Ovation and outfitted it properly, I still kind of preferred the older backwards boat, at least until I wore it out.

Thank for the input... in my boat the front and rear thwarts differ by 2". It seems strange, the boat is like new and was probably paddled less than 10 times before I got it - strange that anyone would modify it while it was that new. No big deal the boat seems to paddle fine.

Maybe a thwart from a different model got into the stack/bin they used for Ovations, and the assembler didn't notice...

Okay, I got off my butt, removed my "stock" Ovation from the bottom of a pile of canoes and measured the thwarts. Both are approximately 24 inches on their longest side (there's a slight bevel to conform to the canoe's shape) and both are 37" from their respective ends of the canoe.

Does it look like the thwarts were moved? Perhaps the original owner didn't like their placement.

Given the measurements I just gave you, it would be easy to make new thwarts, put them in the right place, and turn it back into its original shape. But then again, if you like how the boats handles now, perhaps it's fine. Or even improved.