C-Forum

I don't mean to start a controversy, but I have an 11-foot Ovation boat with no evidence that it ever had a center thwart, it has a total of four thwarts. Do people generally put a center thwart in? That would mean buying tools and figuring out how to use them without destroying things, so maybe I would be better off doing nothing unless there is a strong consensus about the need for a thwart.

A center thwart in any solo boat would make trimming the boat properly very difficult. You only need enough thwart to keep it from being floopy.

Solo canoes similar to your Ovation, often have 3 or 4 thwarts.

The closest common configuration to a solo thwart would be a thwart that goes across the top of a solo saddle, so just aft of centre.

No real need for a thwart to be in the centre but of course centre thwarts are common in tandem canoes for carrying (then called a yoke).

Yep on what paddle power stated. A thwart in the center is going to move your paddling position to the rear of center which will make the stern heavier and the bow lighter. That will make the boat very turny (it's a word now) and probably not a lot of fun to paddle at that point. Definitely do not place your paddling position so your legs are under a thwart.

Have fun with the boat.

Thanks for the advice. I wasn't thinking exact center, I was thinking more like add a fifth thwart back of center, adding to the four in there that were pretty far forward and back, leaving a space in the middle. One of the gunnels got bent by contact with a rock, so I am wondering if it needs one more thwart. Some Ovations have four thwarts, some have five, so it's kind of confusing, but I don't hear people telling me I should add a thwart, so that's good.

I outfitted one for a local paddling shop once - it had 4 thwarts. 2 fore, 2 aft, none where I placed the pedestal. I would have preferred to have one there to brace the pedestal, but the pedestal they provided for me to use was short and would have required modification to reach thwart level.

Oh, look - I found a picture -



I think 4 thwarts would have been sufficient, but would rather one of them to be at the seat. Not just to brace the seat, but because it seemed like that left a lot of boat in the middle un-reinforced.

Common sense had escaped me again so I put in centre thwarts in several short boats over time but... I put them over top of the pedestal seat, having notched it out. I thought I was stiffening the seat to improve my roll. Dumb move.

The first thwart was wood. In a hole, on a rock, rolling up... to tell your the truth I don't really know what happened but I topsided with two very short sharp shards of wood 3" behind my back. Went to shore, ripped them out, threw them in the bush.

It's not a really dumb move unless you can duplicate it, I think that is called the "control". So I put in an aluminum tube, in the same position, and bonded it to the seat with some sikaflex... and broke that.

Some one with a brain told me that the hull was flexing under the seat when I hit a rock and the travel in the hull flex compressed the seat into the thwart and the thwart broke. Bought him a beer.
Dumb move B: If the thwart was too strong to break then there would be an excellent opportunity to trash the hull.

I do have good ideas, just not that day.
For me 3-4 thwarts are enough in a short boat; two where the airbags terminate and one in the bow.

I usually place the "center" thwart a few inches forward of center. It passes right over my thighs to hold them down. It also holds down part of the minicell pedestal assembly. I set things up so that my butt is right over the balance point of the hull. When I carry the boat, I throw it up inverted over my head, and the top of my head supports the boat right where my butt was before.

It used to be that boaters left the center thwart in the geometrical center, and their seating position was back of the boat's balance position. The result was often that they were paddling with their bows somewhat up in the air, not the best arrangement for good boat handling. I'm on a UK site a lot, and most people there are still paddling bow up. History repeats.

I've blown out gunwales when my loaded canoe came down a ledge and hit something. It's a problem of the attachment of the thwart to the gunwale being flimsy. I make sure the thwarts are strong enough that they are very unlikely to split.

Since Royalex is dead,
I would say that anything you can do to stiffen up the boat, and perhaps extend its life, would be a good idea. That being said, I would recommend against putting thwarts in places where they will possibly shatter and stab you, or help pin you in the boat. You could always put an old Perception II saddle in it, then you'd basically have 6 thwarts (and a HEAVY boat)!
Good luck,

-Rob