Cleats or Hangers?

[Rob A]

I'm working on my Bob's Special and I've yet to decide which is the better way to install canoe seats: should they be hung from the gunnels or attached by supporting cleats to the inside of the canoe? Both methods have pro's and con's.

Cleats: Simpler to install, visually less intrusive, and means bolts don't stick up to catch or come loose, but puts stress on the hull.

Hangers: traditional method; but puts stress on the gunnels, and weakens gunnels due to bolt holes.

Has anyone out there thought about this?

[Tom in MN]

I have always been leary of cleats on the inside of the hull. I just invision one breaking off out in the middle of BF Egypt, then what do you do. Ever try to use a canoe with a broken seat? It sucks, and as Murphy would have it, this will happen as far from the truck as possible. I am not concerned about bolts breaking, but I have had epoxy fail as an adhesive when scarfing gunnels which has me a little gun shy.

I have seen it done. I even saw one guy who built an 18' white guide that attached cleats, then put screws from the outside of the hull into the cleats. I could hardy believe it when I saw it but he thougt is was really smart???????? Beautiful waterproof hull and to go and put holes in it didn't make any sense. What this taught me was this guy also thought about cleats giving way out in the middle of nowhere.

Good luck!

[Juneaudave]

I used cleats in my Rice Lake and hangers on my Bob's. I definately recommend hangers for the canoe. Couple of reasons....the cleats are scribed to the hull and are difficult to fit...and when you glue them in...they want to slip up the sides out of place. The hangers, per Canoecraft, really work well and are very traditional.

[AlanWS]

My seats installed with cleats over 30 years ago are still working fine. I used a single long cleat on each side of each seat, and fit them nicely to the curve of the hull. I don't remember whether I even put a layer of glass over it, but I might have. But I just hung the seats in my new boat from the gunwales. Both methods work well.

As far as breakage is concerned, a gunwale break would be a lot bigger problem on trail than would a seat coming loose, but neither is likely. The thing I worried about with the cleat was the loss of hull flex, which might be a problem when you hit a rock in white water, near the seat attachment.

[Erik, Belgium]

I used hangers on my 38SPL and cleats on my Winisk.
Cleats certainly are more difficult to shape correctly, and to get them fitted. I made an external support from hull over gunwales, side to side to get the seat to stay in position while epoxy was setting.
I don't see a drawback on using cleats, nor do I have any doubts about epoxy coming loose after glueing.
The only trouble is to define the right position. The position of hangers could be changed if you want to, cleats can't.

Erik, Belgium.