This is a facebook post from ESQUIF canoes today......
"It is with great sadness that we announce today that Esquif Canoes inc. has stopped operating Monday March 16th, 2014. Various elements forced Esquif to dispose of its assets and end production.
For over 15 years, we worked hard to design and build the best canoes in the world and we want to thank all our customers and friends. Mission accomplished!
Jacques and everyone from Esquif"
Interesting. Esquife shut down this year in French (2015) and was shut down last year (2014) in English. Maybe there is a little opportunity to arbitrage le difference.
If you are dickering over dimes on a 2nd hand boat purchase it might be time to close deal. Quickly.
In spite of the 'net word doesn't always travel that fast.
e
Paddling is easy, organizing shuttles is hard.
Not misplacing all your crap in somebody else's car seems to be even harder
That's really sad - they've done a lot for the whitewater community (keeping older models alive, and bringing us the L'Edge, Zoom, Zephyr, and Spark to name a few...).
We wish Jacques Chasse and the whole Esquif family well.
They certainly went down trying. All those great boat designs and what looked like a full-on effort to replace Royalex with a new thermofold laminate which they had been heavily advertising in paddling magazines. My hope would be that someone will buy their PE molds for the L'Edge and Prelude--two great designs that deserve to be continued.
Einar wrote:Interesting. Esquife shut down this year in French (2015) and was shut down last year (2014) in English. Maybe there is a little opportunity to arbitrage le difference.
If you are dickering over dimes on a 2nd hand boat purchase it might be time to close deal. Quickly.
In spite of the 'net word doesn't always travel that fast.
e
Just got two Esquife canoes from really nice people. I am glad I found them.
The full weight of this news is beginning to set in. It's now going to be harder and harder for people to experience our sport. All the Esquif boats are now gone from the market. The Outrage and Outrage X have been discontinued. I wonder what Nova Craft will do with the Ocoee? They were going to make it from T-Formex. Will they make a plug to refashion it in TuffStuff? I wonder what Wenonah is going to do with the Recon--how are they going to make that? And we haven't heard much from Mohawk. Where's the phiend? These are sad days indeed. Esquif was our big hope. Jacques, I'm so sorry things didn't work out. You and your company were amazing in your support and innovation for whitewater canoes.
Fortunately, there is still Blackfly. Jeremy, you rock, dude. You may be the last and ultimate source of canoes for our sport at this point. Keep the OC!
If I were a rich man, I'd hurry up to Canada and buy Esquif, but alas, my pockets aren't that deep and a paddler, not a boat manufacturer, I be.
For me it wasn't just that Esquife made canoes, it was that they pushed into new territories of design, creating new ideas themselves and promoting others ideas, enabling new technique in paddling, pushing canoeing into new rivers and style.
Other manufacturers have made a good contributions too but Equife was unique for its time.
e
Paddling is easy, organizing shuttles is hard.
Not misplacing all your crap in somebody else's car seems to be even harder
Now I'm really glad I made the trip up to QC back in Dec. to get my new boat and didn't wait. Hope I don't outgrow it too quickly, as a new hull might be hard to come by. Was gonna replace my old Tripper with an Esquif boat, I'd better start looking quickly. Sorry to see you go Esquif. Like so many I was really looking forward to seeing the new TFormex models this Spring. You will be missed.
