I replaced my old crummy yoke in my Boundary Waters with a Spring Creek yoke tonight. Seems very comfortable and the kids should be able to use it as a seat for a few years at least. One thing that concerns me is there is no thwart behind the bow seat. Do i need to add one now that I took out the old wood yoke? It really seemed to provide some side to side flex stability. Am I over thinking this?

I don't think you need to as long as you leave the SC seat in place. It will act as your thwart bar. Plenty strong assuming you installed the seat correctly. I love mine. The kids can straddle the pads and sit side by side or turn facing out and sit back to back. They love it, as do I. Congrats on the new gear!

We too have a Boundary Waters Wenonah, and we too installed a Spring Creek yoke last year.

Took out the middle thwart as you did as well, and did not add a new one, just the Spring Creek Yoke. Its been a Godsend.

as long as your seat sitters stay small. As the load gets heavy, the spring creek seat/yolk will pull and roll the canoe sides in and lead to stress at the chine. Almost had a disaster in my Mn2. Varying canoe models with different sidewall design/tumblehome (hard or soft chine) will resist or enhance the pulling in.

Thank you all for the reassurance. I tooled around the yard a bit and it was very comfortable to carry.

I know at Spring Creek they often install a thwart behind the front seat if you don't think your going to paddle it backwards solo or anything when taking out that center thwart.