cutthroat mocification for paddling

Neal Weinfield’s Story about using the cutthroat like a paddle cat and transporting Via commercial air craft from Wisconsin to Oregon

I just wanted you to know how pleased we were with the Cutthroat 2.

We configured it for kayak paddling by bolting the oar towers onto the upper longitudinal bracing to use as backrests, and placing the blue cushions on the floor of the boat to use as seats. This gave us a very strong paddling brace. We used 260 cm Bending Branches Ace Paddles. A picture is attached.

As you know, so that the frame could be transported by airplane, Jacks cut the lateral frame tubing so that the frame could be disassembled into pieces measuring no more than 36” in any dimension. Once packed, it fit into two standard bags each weighing about 50 pounds with no extra baggage charge.

For trials, we took the Cutthroat 2 down the technical Wolf River in Wisconsin, and it was sufficiently nimble to make it through narrow rock gardens.

We just finished 90 miles on the Grande Ronde River (Class 2-3) on the Oregon-Washington-Idaho line. The boat handled extremely well. It was very fast, and on two days we covered 30 miles. We ferried it several times and it handled beautifully. It easily carried my Son and I (270 pounds total) and 100 pounds of gear.

It also portaged well, since we could hold the frame at bow and stern between the pontoons and walk with our legs unimpeded.

We are very pleased and we are planning our next trip.

How it was done

I bolted the oar towers onto the cross bars with two bolts. I split the lower portion of the pipe and the bolts went through the top portion of the tower cross brace, the cross brace itself and the bottom portion of the cross brace. The result was that the cross brace was tightly sandwiched between the split portions of the tower brace. It created a very strong backrest, and we were able to be properly braced, and get a lot of power from our paddle strokes. I was considering welding the towers, but I liked the flexibility of being able to adjust the angle of the towers for each paddler. I was also afraid that any annealing that occurred during the welding process could weaken the cross piece. We then sat on the blue cushions which were placed on the floor and made very comfortable seats for many hours of paddling.

I also used webbing straps to tie the backrest to the longitudinal tubes to further strengthen the backrestin the event of capsize.

Neal Weinfield

Jacks note:

sometimes we work with people on customizing a design, but we are not entirely sure what they want to accomplish. This is one of those cases. We really do wish to try and get you products that fit your life style. You do not have to live in the west to have that lifestyle. Neal and his son made it work. Thank you Neal!

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