Yokes & Thwarts

[Guest]

I used to have an end supported cart. It would have been better to have no cart IMO.. 90 percent of the load still is exerted on you and my biggest plaint is that it does not make the same radius turn that you walk. At Juniper there is about a 1/4 mile boardwalk walk to portage and its full of twists and turns. The center loader is more amenable to seeing what you are doing( less frustrating). But there is no need to pay a hundred bucks for a portage cart. Go to Juniper and look at the carts they have made for the public to use for that boardwalk. They work well enough and are center loaders

This design no doubt could be made wider for center load or narrowish for end load. Much more versatile than end load designs I have seen. Plus it looks like the total cost would be under forty bucks

Similar to Juniper the raised ramp at Hammocks Beach has a 30 degree angle half way down, and a 90 degree turn at the end onto the floating dock. Using the little end hauler I have to stop at the turns, walk back and move the stern to one side to pull the canoe around those angles.

As far as sinkability is concerned the little end hauler floats; the cart itself is very lightweight, and the bunk that the hull rests on is a thick chunk of minicel that provides sufficient floatation to keep the cart from going full Davey Jones. Adding some split foam pipe insulation floatation to a manufactured or DIY cart might be worthwhile.

End haulers do require holding most of the boat weight aloft. The upside is that when solo I find it easier to stuff one end of the canoe into the end hauler than to raise the hull high enough to scootch over and balance positioned amidships on a center hauler’s bunks.

On a well-duh side note those canoe launch boardwalks with twists and turns are stupidly designed for canoe hauling purposes. The ramp at Hammocks Beach is barely wide enough for two people to pass, awkward for two people carrying gear and impossible for two people carrying boats.

That ramp can be quite busy on weekends (timing which I avoid), and when I asked the Rangers about that design flaw they just face palmed in resignation and said “Well, that’s not what we asked for, but that’s what we got”

 

[Matt Hopkinson]

I bought a used Teal yoke: http://www.tealpaddles.com/ After the Gassabius Portage I want to buy one for every canoe I own.