C-Forum

I have a Probe 12 and I am looking to make it a little edgier and snappier. I am thinking of shortening the thwarts about an inch to pull the gunnels in a bit. My goal is to get it to more closely resemble the hull of a Viper minus the extra rocker.

Should this get the boat closer to what I want?

Is there a downside to doing this?

Thanks,

Kyle

I don't think pulling the thwarts does much to a round hull. Might be time for another boat. Maybe I m wrong.

http://www.cboats.net/cforum/viewtopic. ... ng+thwarts

http://www.cboats.net/cforum/viewtopic. ... 18&start=0

The good thing is that it is easily undone. Just try it! If you pull in the bow and stern too (I think it helps maintain the rocker profile), you will have to remove the decks, but they are probably held on with pop rivets. Easily reinstalled if you decide to go back to the old thwart lengths. Obviously that requires that you make new, shorter thwarts and save the old ones.

Shep

Last weekend my Viper 12 was side-by-side on the rack with a pulled-in Probe. The Probe did not have anything like the edge of the Viper but it did have more bow rocker (to my surprise). I'm not sure how much the Probe was pulled in but I think it's something like an inch or an inch-and-a-half. PAC, Bruce or Big Al might know. It's Mark Ps boat.

make some cheap pine thwarts and try it out before butchering your good ash thwarts... if you don't like the changes you'll only be out a few dollars and you won't be hunting for new ash thwarts to fix what can't be undone once the saw has it's way with them.

curious to hear how it turns out

I did it on my Viper 11, in the 2nd thread that was posted above. Made it faster, a little less stable, didn't seem to screw with the rocker too much. My thoughts at the time were much more clear.

Test on broken hockey sticks. You're close enough to BC that hopefully a few cleared customs.

Chris

http://cboats.net/cforum/viewtopic.php? ... highlight=

I never got around to pulling in the thwarts on my probe, so I'd be interested in your mileage. I DID paddle the probe down some class IV water while I was in between primary boats, and it styled it! It's a great forgiving design that can handle what you throw at it. It doesn't carve into turns, but it did SLIDE into about any eddy I threw at it.

I also used this thread information to pick up some $5 unbroken hocky sticks @ play it again sports to make some new thwarts for another project. Great, light results. I routed the edges to make grabbing the squared-off thwart more ergonomic. I sanded it down but left the words "SURE SHOT" front and center to add some character/street cred.

I am going to stop by Lowes on my way back from the river tomorrow and pick up some make shift thwarts. Then I'll do laps on the local class II-III run while changing them out and post the results.

I definitely want to try to pull them in 1", 1.5", and maybe 2".

How far should be able to go before I have to redo the deck plates?

Kyle

you could prob go 2" but i think 1.5 is the magic number

I pulled the thwarts in aggressively on a $300 Ovation trying to speed it up.
Before I did it I did a takeoff of width/length dimensions onto my shop floor and measured the rocker at randomly picked points bow and stern. On C1B1'ers good advice I pulled the original thwarts and used hockey sticks as the new shorter ones.
For the hades of it I pulled it in 2" amidship and eyeballed it at the other positions, taking a symetrical boat and making it narrower overall but fuller at the bow and slightly tapered at the stern. I had been advised that I would lose some rocker if I didn't bring All the thwarts in.
All done I lost little rocker and gained .5 inch length and the boat gained speed on the flats. It surfed and played well enough on a small local test wave but it could do that before. I could lazy roll it. It was a mellow test

I got a midwinter chance to run a small local 3+ slot canyon that I had done before so I grabbed the modified Ovation as my viper 11 was being worked on. What the hades, why not.

When pinballing off of the rocks that modified Ovation developed a really fast wicked roll rate, the equivalent of a 45 gallon oil drum and it had no secondary once it got going. After my 4th high speed trashin in a row I was ready to walk out.

Buy a V11 Kyle. Borrow mine if you need convincing.

Sounds like your ovation is similar to mine... I reserve it for class ii water to make it interesting. I took an 3/4 or an inch out of the bow and stern, and it took a lot of pressure to do it. On the ovation, the deck plates covered the bow and stern thwarts, so I had to remove them to do anything with those thwarts.

Shep

Einar: I would love to borrow your boat sometime to compare it to mine, but I am not so unhappy with the Probe that I want a new canoe. This is more of a fun little experiment for me. A big part of my motivation is to push it to the point where it is tippy to expose myself to that type of boat.

I am going to keep the factory thwarts stock and just buy some new ones from WKC if I find I like the Probe better a little thinner. That way I can set it back to factory specs if I need to loan it to a new boater.

Kyle

While it's just a minor change or quickly reversible. I'm reminded of the old adage: That you can't make chicken soup, outta ....

As you have evidently progressed just maybe the time has come for a boat swap?

I agree.
Do it. Bring it up here and we'll can take my V11 out for a side by side comparison; we can jump back and forth from boat to boat. Maybe I'll throw the Kevlar V11 on the water too.

Although I wasn't impressed with my result I learned a lot from the process.