DIY: Removable Solo Canoe Yoke

On By Brian DayIn Tools

A solution for solo canoes with a pedestal seat.

I love pedestal seats in solo canoes. A sliding seat on a pedestal allows you to effortlessly change the trim of the canoe in wind and waves. It’s like having a retractable skeg on a sea kayak and can play a huge role in making a solo canoe more controllable when things get windy.

Problem is, when you attach a yoke to the canoe, there’s no room for your head.

The clamp-on CVCA yoke is the only commercial option currently available for solo canoes with pedestal seats.

The solution to this is a yoke that is raised far enough above the gunwales to let your head clear the pedestal frame. Wenonah Canoe sells a specialty yoke designed by Chosen Valley Canoe Accessories that accomplishes this nicely, but I have been thinking about a DIY option for a while now and finally decided to give it a shot on my old, beater fiberglass Encounter. The following images will take you through the process, and reveal a few mistakes I made along the way.

Pieces and parts. My plan was to use the tandem removable yoke brackets (available from Wenonah Canoe) along with some 2″ flat stock aluminum and a conventional ash yoke. Stainless steel hardware would lock everything together.
Getting started. The first step in mounting the yoke is to find the balance point of the canoe. I set the canoe on a saw horse and balanced it so that it was slightly stern-heavy. Then measured and marked both sides for center.
Next, I mounted the brackets, centering them on the marks I had made for the balance point of the canoe. This required drilling out a rivet on each side. A 3/16″ drill bit is used to drill out rivets and also to drill through the gunwales for bolting the bracket to the canoe.
First bracket bolted in place. At this point I drilled through the bracket from the outside of the canoe so I could replace the missing rivet.
Replace missing rivet with a medium length 3/16″ pop rivet.

Now it was time to fabricate the risers. I used 1/8″ thick, 2″ flat aluminum stock. I calculated that a 6″ riser height would let my head clear the pedestal once the yoke had pads mounted. A 2″ long tab for mounting to the yoke was bent into one end of the riser using a vise, and the risers were cut to length with a hack saw.

A little napkin math told me the risers should be 6″ tall with a 2″ tab for mounting to the yoke.
1/8″ aluminum stock marked for cutting and bending.
Bending the risers in a vice
Sawing the risers to size.
Remove any burrs from the aluminum with coarse sandpaper.

Next I mounted the risers to the yoke tabs from the removable tandem yoke hardware. I used a spring punch to mark the risers for drilling and secured the two pieces using stainless bolts and nuts. Here I made a mistake. I later discovered that the hardware closest to the hinge interfered with mounting the brackets in the canoe. So I drilled a second set of holes higher on the bracket and used the original holes to attach lanyards for the yoke pins.

Clamping the removable brackets to the riser. I used a spring punch to start the drill holes so the bit wouldn’t walk.
Completed riser. The hardware nearest the hinge interfered with mounting in the canoe so I moved it and used the original hole for mounting a lanyard for the yoke pins.

At this point I mounted the risers to the brackets in the gunwales by inserting the yoke pins and used clamps to position the yoke on the risers.

I made another mistake here. I should have paid a little more attention to the angle of the risers where they met the yoke. Clamping everything together before I drilled the yoke put enough pressure on the risers that I was able to force them together, but the angles later ended up being a little off, which made it difficult to insert the pins on the yoke. I figured out a solution to this later down the road.

Risers installed in yoke brackets. They’re secured by pins.
Yoke is centered and clamped in place.
Double-checking measurements to make sure the yoke is centered.
Clamp and drill for hardware.
Finished yoke in place.

With everything bolted together it was time to trim off the excess ends of the ash yoke so it could be easily tucked into the canoe.

Here is the finished yoke trimmed down to minimum width with a pair of block style yoke pads. You can see the lanyards attached to the yoke pins so they don’t get lost.

Project done, right?Well…not so fast.

With everything complete I discovered that it was VERY difficult to get the second pin into the brackets when mounting the yoke to the canoe. The angles weren’t exactly right and you really had to flex things hard to get the brackets to line up. The solution for this was to build a little fudge room into the brackets so they could be moved slightly on the yoke.

I did this by drilling the holes where the riser meets the yoke slightly oversized. This allowed me to shift the risers about 1/4″ when I put everything back together. I also ground the tips of the yoke pins to a sharper point, which helped them to self-center as they slid into the brackets. These two changes improved installation dramatically. If I do this again on another canoe I’ll be much more careful when I mount the risers to the yoke and will make sure the riser tabs are perfectly flush to the yoke before I drill.

Underside of yoke showing mounting hardware and pin lanyards.
Grinding a point on the pins helps everything to line up.
By drilling the holes in the risers oversize I was able to shift the riser brackets slightly on the ash yoke and improve fitment.

Now we’re done! Once installed the yoke is very secure. There is very little flex in the risers and plenty of clearance for your head above the pedestal. When removed the yoke tucks neatly behind the seat and takes up little room in the canoe. This is a simple and effective option if you are looking for an alternative to a clamp-on solo yoke.

Materials List
Ash Yoke
Wenonah tandem removable yoke hardware
1/8″ flat aluminum stock, 2″ wide
Stainless bolts and nyloc nuts
3/16″ rivets
3/16″ drill bit
550 cord for lanyards
Superior Portage Pads

Links
Wenonah Tandem Removable Yoke Hardware
Wenonah Ash Yoke

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