C-Forum

Hey folks,

So I'm finally getting around to building my new boat that's been hanging in the garage since Christmas. (Slacker I know!) So the two mid thwarts were un mounted when I got it. Before taking any measurements, I sanded off the original varnish, stained them to my liking and revarnished. Now I'm getting ready to install, and I assume I want to place them about an inch behind the last factory mounted eye/loop thingy for the cage lacing. These would be ideal positions based on my 54" bag up front and 60" in the rear. However...I'll need to pull the hull in about 3/4" on both sides of the boat to get them to fit properly. Would this be the intent of the boat's design? Not sure what this could change, other than a slightly narrower paddling station. My other option is head to the lumber yard and get some other wood to make longer thwarts, but I don't really wanna spend a whole nother weekend watching 3 coats of varnish dry! So before I go drilling through the gunwales I thought I might get a couple opinions. BTW it's an Esquif Raven.

Thanks,

Dan

If you want to use them, and don't want to pull the hull in, just move them a bit forward and rearward. It doesn't matter if a thwart is above the last of the lacing holes, or above the lacing and the rear end of the bag.

The conventional wisdom is that pulling the gunwales in on a boat increases the roundness of the hull cross sectional profile and reduces rocker. I have pulled in the gunwales on some whitewater Royalex boats up to about 2 inches and I have not noted much, if any change in rocker that I could see, feel, or measure but I have heard others claim it makes a difference.

I do think that pulling in the gunwales tends to reduce stability a bit, especially secondary, but 3/4" is so little I doubt you would notice any effect.

Personally, I prefer to have my thwarts positioned slightly closer to the stems than the maximum length of the inflated bags. I think this looks better and works better. The ends of most inflated bags are rounded so if you position the thwart right where the end of the inflated bag winds up, the thwart will be somewhat amidships of the top of the inflated bag.

I'm sure you know this but put some lacing in and inflate the bag to determine exactly where the end will be. All bags shorten several inches when inflated but the amount of shortening depends on the bag design and the fullness of the ends of the canoe.