What's your favorite lightweight or ultralight removable carry yoke system, how long does installation and removal take and how do you securely store the yoke in the canoe when not installed for carrying the canoe?

I like the simplicity and weight of strap yokes but prefer the carry comfort of solid yokes. I like the dual purpose of paddle yokes but I use a single blade paddle and I rarely take 2 paddles. A solid yoke with quick release fasteners in place of clamps for installing and parking the yoke would probably best meet my requirements.

Strap yokes are okay from car to creek. For portaging, especially long and/or rough portages like the BW/Q, I'm definitely a fan of traditional yokes. With the custom cam-lock yokes I made, it's no more than 10 seconds to install and half that to remove as there is no adjusting once set up for a particular canoe. While paddling, it just rests in the bottom of the canoe with the rest of the gear. Because the pads are EVA foam, they do not pick up any water.

A bit of a carry-over from the Das Boot thread, I have a spec yoke for the Magic (grey pads) that is skinnied down to 21 oz. The other adjustable yoke fits my Merlin II and as an older build, goes 28 oz. The EVA pads are more durable than you'd think and are so much lighter than the traditional block pads you see and are very comfortable too.

Again, I think that cam system is brilliant.

Protect your IP and hang your shingle!

Right now I'm using the Northstar wood clamp on yoke. Not sure of the weight. They do have Carbon yokes 17.3 oz (yoke only weight) here Swift offers a Carbon clamp on if you have an extra $700 laying around

sns: "Again, I think that cam system is brilliant.


Protect your IP and hang your shingle!"

Thanks sns! I'm willing to build for other folks if there's interest.

Savage River has a strap on Carbon option. I've never used one. Looks nice.

G0 to the link and scroll down to the accessories.
Savage River

I have a Northstar Phoenix at 28#.
I was fed this youtube about a year ago and made one of the yokes. The wood and other supplies were free, already in the shop, and I think I got the pad for around $8 on sale at Rutabaga.
I didn't get to use it but my friend did and said it worked fine. Install and removal uses the flexibility of the gunnels. When I tried it in the yard it seemed like it could use some sort of friction enhancer where the yoke meets the gunnel.
The yoke shown with the cams looks more substantial but I don't think you can beat this for ease.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wSgvuIhDFA0

That is really cool and definitely super simple. Of course, you need to have an outer lip to make that work in that fashion. The Rapidfire and Savage River don't have that and require a different solution. One could try that on the inside vs. the outside of the canoe but I'd have to wonder how spreading the gunnels vs. compressing them would affect long-term structural integrity?

portagedog09: "That is really cool and definitely super simple. Of course, you need to have an outer lip to make that work in that fashion. The Rapidfire and Savage River don't have that and require a different solution. One could try that on the inside vs. the outside of the canoe but I'd have to wonder how spreading the gunnels vs. compressing them would affect long-term structural integrity?"

Agreed - pretty neat.

And no - really would not want to test the physics of spreading vs compressing.

My solution won't work for everyone:
Minicell yoke

I don't have any really good pics of my current setup - the DIY thread shows my old Magic, which has been divested from the fleet.

The Savage River's setup is similar, however the attachment points on the thwarts have changed a bit.

The yoke itself is completely unchanged from that initial build in 2020, and I have used it on about 100 miles worth of portages. It looks like new and will probably outlast me.

The paddle is 26oz and the minicell yoke is 4.5 oz.

These photos are not great but are better than nothing:

I have the Savage River yoke TimAtkin posted. It works very well, has stayed secure on a couple of decent bushwhacks or on storm stricken portages that were worse than bushwhacks. Much better than the Chosen Valley yoke that I tried to use (returned three of them) with my Advantage.

I stash it behind the seat in front of the pack. It takes a matter of seconds to install or remove.