soft royalex on new boat

[ncdavid]

Hi,

I recently bought me a new paradigm boat from esquif serial number qvvpa003c707
Seems to me that the boat has been made in 2007, so 3 years old already.
When I paddled it, the least bit of rock i touched gave me scratches, very deep ones at that.
I even managed to get a scratch trough the vinyl layer when not even sitting in the boat.
Anybody have any ideas what the problem might be?

Thx

Sounds like bad material to make a boat from. When you buy a boat it should be ready to paddle. Right now. Would you buy a car that you had to let cure in a climate-controlled setting for six months before driving? Of course not. I'll probably still buy a used Royalex boat at some point, but there's no way I'd ever buy a new, full-price boat in Royalex. The cost exceeds the value. Composite or plastic for me.

[scott curtis]

don't hold its value.. i agree.. i got a nitro , that has 3 or 4 creases in it.. i use bondo and paint... who no's how many more trips its got.. my zoom has a creased bondo job too... working nice for now

[Mr.DeadLegs]

How many strong river days do you think a boat should last? I know some runs are harder and more boat abusive than others but what do you find reasonable?

[cheajack]

Trey, I had seven, that's right seven easy runs on a brand new Detonator that had been sitting in dealer inventory for well over a year when I noticed the vinyl wearing in the double chines and far too many areas where the outer layer of ABS was getting gouged from easy hits. It just shouldn't have happened. I think the hard bends in the double chines cause the ABS layers to pull apart from the foam. The distance the outside layer has to travel in the bending process is enough longer than the distance traveled by the inside layer that a shear develops IMO.

[Mr.DeadLegs]

I had a boat the had the vynal layer seperate after just a few runs. My previous post was not to say that the OP was winey, I just want to know what people think is reasonable. I am of the mind that you should be able to get between 150 and 200 runs out of a boat before it is a planter. That is around a run a week for 3 years plus some extras for ALF and such. At that rate of wear a boat works out to less than 10 dollars a run if you outfit it yourself. I think that is a reasonable value. If I get this much use out of a boat I would be very happy. Boats that you have to wait a year to paddle is wrong, boats that wear out after less than 50 normal runs for sane human beings is wrong. If you are boofing rocks, running drops, creeking and other such abusive but fun practices don't whine, you know you are killing your boat. Count it as the cost of the game.

[Eric Nyre]

Quick comment on boat life:

If you don't like Royalex, don't buy it.

If you found something you like better, buy that.

I have one ex-customer who beats the snot out of his boats, and complains about boat life. I've clearly told him I don't know of any boats or materials that will hold up to his expectations, so I won't sell him anything more. If he can find what his imagination is telling him he should find, awesome. If he can't find that, he can give up on paddling.

[jakke]

I had a boat the had the vynal layer seperate after just a few runs. My previous post was not to say that the OP was winey, I just want to know what people think is reasonable. I am of the mind that you should be able to get between 150 and 200 runs out of a boat before it is a planter... .

I was there with the OP. I do own a viper11 in Royalex, and bought myself a PE prelude for a good reason. I've got my viper delaminated on the chines due to some - euhm - abuse, things one should not do with royalex.
But the boat of the OP is really soft. It would almost scratch if the boat came closer then 50cm to a rock (a figure of speaking). I've seen a rolyalite spark, on the same stretch, hitting stones without consequences, and the boat of the OP was scratched by much lighter rock-encounters.
I agree, that royalex is not the holey grale, and that scratches and creases are normal. Just not as light as in this case, and certainly not for a new boat that has had about 3 years to age. Yes, of course, on a new boat you just see the new scratches better. But I've been paddling 2 years with my viper before I got a scratch through the vinyl layer. He's got 2 days with a lot lower paddling intensity!

[ncdavid]

I know a guy who is on his third new boat this year. And it won't last much longer. Beat up and broke down. Fortunately for him, he gets his boats for free.

[2opnboat1]

and if it is who I think it is The boat is a Royal lite made just for team members

[Craig Smerda]

"Royalex is a composite material of Vinyl and ABS, which doesn't weigh and cost too much and can handle impact quite well although it dents and abrades easy. Around 1990 the EPA or OSHA regulations forced Uniroyal/Spartec to alter the way their Royalex sheets were manufactured. As a result Royalex was not as strong as before, especially when brand new. After a year of so, it is said to become better but not as good as it used to be?

Dirk Barends"

I guess we all need to thank the "treehuggers" right?

I'm still trying to find the EPA mandate that explains all of this but I'm pretty certain it had to do with the CFC's released during the sheet forming process. If memory serves me correctly the old outer skin used to be more like a thin coat of plastic than vinyl. The skin on more modern Royalex is more like vinyl.




Jim Little...

This the same Jim... who Dagger started giving boats w/o gunwales attached, so that'd last more than a couple weeks?

(or outfitted)

Funny Phil... Jim and I would go to the factory and get 3 hulls the same color... that way in the video it would look like the same boat : )

Frankie:

"Jimmy these things ain't made to do that"

We were going thru boats every 6 weeks

And those were the "good" Royalex boats of yester-year.

I have a good friend that's still nursing along his old Royalite Ocoee that seems to get heavier each season. Some people are coating their brand new boats in all kinds of odd goop to make them last longer... there's at least a dozen threads on this site with people trying to keep old boats afloat with bondo and bubble gum... and some folks are imo just overly concerned about a few character marks... war wounds if you will. Heck... the highlight of my summer thusfar was putting fresh scratches in a brand new boat. If you paddle whitewater in a Royalex boat it's going to get scratched... it's going to get creases... and it's going to take a beating. It's just part of the game. There are alternatives and at some point there will be more canoes coming from various manufacturers that are more scratch resistant, more durable and that will last longer... but then some people will probably complain that they weigh too much... or they don't like the color... or...

[ohioboater]

Short answer? For someone like me (aggressive but not abusive class 3+ paddler), a boat should last 10-15 years.

Why do I say this? Because that's how long it looks like my original boat is going to last.

I have a Probe that mas made in either the early or mid 90s. It was essentially un-used when I bought it from its second owner 8 years ago - shiny vinyl on the majority of the hull, just the tiniest of scratches on the bow. I now have between 240 and 360 river days on my boat at this point, and it's just now starting to show bits of green ABS in the stems.

I paddle probably 30-40 days a year. I don't creek or seek out rock spin moves, rock boofs, etc., but I have developed into an aggressive class 3+/4- paddler. As such, my boat will hit rock hard at least once or twice per river day, sometimes more if I'm having an off day. If I don't get bored with it, I expect this boat to last me at least another 5 years, if not longer.

Contrast that with an Esquif Blast that I demoed down at NOC a few years ago. The boat was probably a year or two old, part of their school/demo fleet. We did one tandem run down the Nanty, catching every little bank and boulder eddy we could find (and missing a few, resulting in hitting or skidding over shallow rocks). I would consider the amount of use I put on the boat in that run to be within the normal range for me. When we took out, it was NOTICEABLY worse for wear - lots of white on the chines that wasn't there at the put in, several creases/dents, etc. I don't think that boat would have lasted more than a year or two if I owned it. Sorry, but I'm not paying close to $2K for something that will only last a season or two.

Same experience with a Wenonah flatwater solo I picked up recently. The boat was made about a year ago. First time I set it down on its hull on gravel (with nothing in the boat), it got a conical dent that was visible on the INSIDE of the hull. The vinyl scratches if you look cross eyed at it, and the hull can be flexed in the middle with moderate hand pressure - not unnaturally soft, just flimsy. Even though this is a Royalex boat, I will have to treat it like it's a composite if I want it to last more than a few seasons.

I really want to say that I'll never buy another Royalex boat again, but unfortunately I have yet to find a design in rotomold that I like.

Composite doesn't seem ideal, either. The light weight and repairability are nice, but I'd probably have to spend too much time doing the latter. Case in point - a friend's Hooter has a huge patch on the stern from that boat's maiden voyage, when he dropped a small ledge a little too slowly and cracked the stern. ONE HIT, and the boat needed duct tape to make it to the takeout. I'm not intentionally abusive of my boats, but I want to know that I'm not going to break my hull the first time I make a mistake...

Somebody further up in the thread basically said "put up or shut up." So I guess I should just shut up, because it doesn't seem like things are going to improve any time soon. Who knows, maybe the L'edge will turn out to be the first short boat I actually like...

[sbroam]

I'm taking *reallllllly* good care of my old royalex boats these days...

[gumpy]

hopefully l'edge will put an end to this discussion once and for all.

[zepance]

anybody has an technical answer for me concerning dents in royalex.

What material is denting in royalex and what isn't does the curing process have an influence on it or not.
Like i said mine dents easily

[Craig Smerda]

anybody has an technical answer for me concerning dents in royalex.

What material is denting in royalex and what isn't does the curing process have an influence on it or not.
Like i said mine dents easily

Maybe you could post some pictures or a video of what you are talking about?

Does your boat look like this? (see post #60)
http://www.songofthepaddle.co.uk/forum/ ... *****-good

Do you understand what Royalex is or how it works and is molded?










Mohawks "care & repair" info... http://www.mohawkcanoes.com/care.html

I hate to say this without seeing it... but I'd bet what you are seeing is believe it or not... "normal".




Maybe we should all go back to using aluminum canoes???