I recently bought a used spirit 2 canoe. I plan on taking solo trps in it and was wondering how well this canoe would handle solo? I've been told to turn it around and paddle it backwards. The problem with that is the thwart will be in the way of my legs and I'll have to elevate myself with a pad or something else. Would it work if I paddled it regular and put all my gear towards the front. My best guess is I have roughly 80 lbs worth of gear. Is that enough weight to trim the front down enough to make it manageable? If you can't tell by my post I have very limited paddling experience.

I've soloed mine from a kneeling position in front of the stern seat.
Can be done but not easy. Any breeze will spin you. And it's quite a reach to paddle solo. Try it out on a calm pond to get a feel for it.

butthead

PS: Didn't use it much solo, bought a purpose built solo shortly after. bh

Just a quick idea. In you case, paddling sitting backwards is not going to work because of the thwart right in back of you.

But perhaps this will.

Move the thwart?

How hard is it to move the thwart? Is it bolted on? Will it do damage to the canoe if not put in the right place?

Chuck at Spring Creek removes the thwart and replaces with aluminum brackets he makes so you can paddle it backwards... give him a call.

I paddled my Old Town from the stern solo with packs forward for many years. But it's only a 15' boat. I can paddle it backwards from the bow seat, but reaching to paddle is uncomfortable to me. I enjoy my solo canoe.

I used a Spirit 2 for four or five solo trips. I tried the sprig creek portage yoke/ center seat and it really did not work too well paddling from the center. I ended up using the rear seat and putting all of my gear in the front. It worked pretty well for the few trips that I used it for. A big problem with using the Spirit 2 was in the wind. I had to stay on my toes to keep the front pointed in the right direction. The wind would catch that big front end and push me off course really fast. I finally ended up with a solo canoe or somewhat of a compromise a solo plus.

tony

It's not going to solo well no matter what you do. If you do need/want to use it, either remove the thwart and paddle backwars or add a seat closer to center (either forward or backward). Adding the seat will work best.

I wouldn't add a "drop-in" seat. I'd use an actual, real seat. If you want to tandem, you can always remove it. In fact, as a solo you could take out the tandem seats and replace with a thwart.