C-Forum

Could a 200lb'er paddle a Supermax? A guy around here has one for sale and I have room in the garage

you will have no problem at 200 Lbs in a supermax. I paddled one for a while (weighed 210) before I got a batmax.

It is a bigger boat, and you may not be able to squirt it, but it turns well.

F

Cool, looks like ther may be a new boat in the quiver.

Do you mean a Super Batmax? I used to have one and was able to do bow squirts(not sure what they're called now) with no problem. I weigh 155. I think that at 200 lbs you'll be doing some awesome mystery moves. Buy some noseplugs.
JKaz

The supermax was only made by Seda - it was the second of the Max Series by Hearn, Lugbill and company. Not sure it was raced that much - because the ultramax came out - I know Bob Robinson raced an ultramax at the '79 worlds (bronze) - don't remember what Jon and Davey raced that year - either ultramax or supermax.

The supermax was a good bit bigger than any of the "winged" maxes

I had no issue with a batmax at 210 lbs, but a super bat was too small for me - I would bow ender over small drops, not to mention bow squirts on a lake.

F

They were called bow pivots back then. The boat was designed to turn from either end for tight courses. It did nice stern pivots too.

[img]http://www.wwslalom.org/bob/paddling/savpiv.jpg[/img]

('86 Savage - I used a bow pivot for the next gate.)

I think pivots are for racing and squirts are for play! I'll bet your goal with a bow pivot is not to stay balanced on end as long as possible... Or to transition into a stern pivot... And when I'm "squirting" my goal is not to be quick... Maybe the difference is more in the intent than the technique...

Supermax is a fine cruiser. Ultramax is even better. Two hundred pounds is not a big problem for either, although around 165 would be the best weight. Dutch Downey raced both models, and he must have been about 200 or more.

Problem with the Supermax C-1 is that Seda made most of them. They are all now over twenty-five years old, and they were not all that well-made when they were new. If it is a Seda boat you are looking at (big white, stylized "s" on the bow), it will certainly give you plenty of work to do when it is not being paddled!

Consider using the Seda Supermax as a starting point for a new, shorter design. Once the ends are removed, and some of the air taken out along the seamline, it would make a good plug for molding a new design. But the 200 pound "payload" may start to be a problem if you really cut the Supermax volume down.

There may still be a few Supermax C-boats made from a mold Owen Peters had in the Richmond area. Although those boats were well-constructed, Peters tended to use mostly glass and nylon cloth in those days, and whatever resin he had in his shop at the time. It was usually pretty good stuff (vinylester, mostly), but I really don't remember what he was using when he was building the Supermax and Ultramax C-1s for Lugbill/Hearn, et al.

What I do remember hearing back then is that on the night before he was to drive to Montreal, Peters was using a torch to dry the seams on the Ultramax boats he was to deliver for use at the 1979 Worlds. Since the boats were so new when the racers/designers finally got them from Peters, I think the Ultramax hulls were shunned for the older Supermax model by the top competitors on race day, including Davey and Jon. Someone who actually saw the race, or has carefully viewed "Fast and Clean", will have to say who raced what boat for sure.

Either way, the Supermax and Ultramax were fast slalom C-1s. Both make excellent river runners.

Some of those vintage Peters C-boats were vacuum-bagged, and those were very nice boats. If you have a lead on a bagged Peters-built Supermax, it might still be a good one. He was expert at laying in cloth to get maximum strength from the weave, and his resin to cloth ratios were usually very precise. But Father time and the wrath of UV rays will damage even the finest construction, so check the condition carefully before paying a lot of money for something that might not be solid enough to support your weight over the rocks.

Thanks for all the usefull info, this would be my first race boat experience so I'm pretty green when it comes to the knowledge of the boats. The guy sent me some pics of the boat, it is a Seda but it looks to be in really good shape. I'll try to post the pics here. there is a kevlar sticker on the boat so I assume that's what it's made out of, was this the normal material. Just trying to get a feel for what this boat may be worth and some advice on purchase. Any help or suggestions are appreciated.

Hopefully the pics are posted below;

[img]http://www.cornyouthalliance.org/images ... ax/sm1.jpg[/img]
[img]http://www.cornyouthalliance.org/images ... ax/sm2.jpg[/img]
[img]http://www.cornyouthalliance.org/images ... ax/sm3.jpg[/img]

Wow it looks really nice! Is that a crak on the bottom photo?

That looks even better than mine (see race boats section). Mine is also kevlar. As for price, I would say a coule hundred at most. It is an old boat, but its in good shape. It will make an excellent cruiser and its pretty roomy as C1s go. With price as the consideration, I would buy it.

Looks like a typical Seda boat. It certainly seems to have led a active life but appears to be in servicable condition...for a boat that is 20-25 years old. But it has plenty of delamination of the inner hull layers, and there may also be cracks in the outer layers of the hull. Areas of the hull have warped. Some repair work (small glass patches or spot application of resin) appears to have been done, but that is not easy to see clearly. The hull looks brittle to me, so expect it to hole out upon impact with riverine features such as rocks and lumber. Carry duct tape in your dry bag.

New the Seda C-boats cost about $450. But that was in dollars circa 1980. And the boat is anything but "new."

Seda boats had a layer of Kevlar in the hull and the deck, but that was about the extent of it. The rest of the construction was usually glass and nylon. I don't remember what resin was used, but it was probably a polyester. The layup was done by hand (not bagged) in a "factory production" setup. None of those factors leads to a long-lasting composite boat.

The boats the Seda factory provided to the Supermax designers (part of the deal for the right to make the boat for commercial sale) were so poorly built they did not stand up to racer training routines. When replacements for the battered Supermax training boats were not forthcoming from the factory, the designers simply made an improved version of the Supermax, called it the Ultramax, and made deals with other builders (Sweet, Vanha, and the guy at Apple.) The Supermax design quickly faded into slalom history.


The problem with Seda boats was the level of resin saturation and control during layup. Some areas of the deck and hull would be resin starved (pinholes and white patterning.) Other areas would be over-saturated (smooth, shiny areas with no apparent cloth texturing on the surface.) You can see what looks like examples of both in the photos you posted. Typical Seda construction.

The cockpit rims were well known for cracking and detaching from the deck. The seam work was spotty (the outside seam is not much more than a piece of black tape over a single layer of glass), so they tended to split along the joint. The tape on the seam of pictured boat has worn off in several places. The hull shows evidence of many impacts with rocks in the lighter colored areas that indicate the laminate has fractured internally (delaminated.)

So if having a seam blow out, or a rim fall off, while making your way downstream is not a problem, get a Seda boat.

If you want a river cruiser, or something to run gates with, that design is a nice one. Rumor has it that the Supermax was the first boat to do stern pivots, but it took world class paddlers to make that happen at the model basin training sessions in DC. That boat may not be very strong after all these years, but you are not likely to find another Supermax in better condition.

Consider it a boat for maybe one season of use as a great front surfer for Rocky Island, running the New Gorge, or getting some high-water playtime on the James. A Supermax will make those flat streches on the Dry Fork and the Yough doldrums seem a lot shorter than in most boats paddled today. When you blow the nose off of it doing popups below Swimmers this summer, don't say you weren't warned!

The Supermax is a very talented boat, and it will entertain a paddler interested in precise handling and control for quite some time. If you want to toss it around in shallow holes, or bounce it off of submerged rocks while doing low water cruises, it will not last another season.

If you can have it in your garage for less than $200, it is probably worth owning just for the fun and novelty. Even if the hull is soft, you can make it into a plug with some Bondo work. After several hundred more dollars, and at least that many hours, you can own a mold to make some Supermax-like boats for your friends.

Yep. that's about it. Nice design, lousy production. I never met anyone who was happy with a Seda boat, C-1 or K-1. A lot were made in across the border in Mexico, to excape US OSHA health standards. The workmanship was accordingly.

I never heard that Owen Peters made any Supermaxes: Sedavec got the exclusives, & I think Peters molded the Ultramax after the kids got disgusted with the Sedavec deal. The pix look like a few (familiar looking) stress cracks & delams; hard to say how much without direct inspection. Incidentally, a few inches of blown seam & a standard-issue ender patch were de-riguer for any self-respecting racer, at least on the Potomac, where bottom-pitons & sky were readily available.

BTW, Steve Chamberlin (Gemini designer) should get more credit for the environment that fueled the US C-boat successes. Before the Gemini, designs (usually Euro) were licensed exclusively to a mfg, as in Europe. In the US, designs were freely pirated from imported Euro boats, sometimes blatantly, sometimes surriptitiously (ie, with "cosmetic" design changes). Steve pushed for a different licensing scheme: any builder can mold the boat if the designer knows & a mold fee is paid. For composite boats, which don't have extensive tooling requirements, this was ideal & allowed lots more opportunity for "backyard" designer/builders, and especially rapid innovation in race designs, for which demand is always limited. I've always maintained that the "DC Brats" succeeded precisely because they were not influenced by Euro C-1 traditions & ideas: they built, pushed the design with new moves & techniques, created new designs to better facilitate the moves, etc, push-&-push-back (sound familiar??). Maybe Sedavic even deserves some credit for sending crappy boats to these dumb teen-age kids -- so they just swore never to get snookered that way again!!

Anyway -- I never paddled a Supermax -- started with a JRS Ultramax, but any C-boater who never paddled a boat from that era should try it, if the price is right. Just take it easy on the rocks -- it ain't plastic.

"The Purple Unicorn Lady"

"Plastic is what keeps turkeys fresh" ( '80's saying)

Always a pleasure to hear from you! Your JRS Ultramax was black, wasn't it? I always thought that was a very good-looking boat. Where is it now?

I had heard the Mexican labor story, but did not know that it was reliable. Certainly explains the problems with those boats.

Peters built only a few "Supermaxi." John DeBoar owned one, as did another very good Richmond C-boater who will remain unnamed because I think his Supermax disappeared into a very muddy James on an extremely high water run somewhere above Second Break. Some say it was sighted a few days later near Hopewell or Norfolk.

The Supermax mold Peters had was probably taken without permission from a Seda before he got involved with the "Brats" and their Ultramax. He had a few such unlicensed molds of the really good designs, both C-1 and kayak. Several of his good friends paddled very well built boats that looked exactly like a Tummonds/Ford Slipper C-1 and the Outrage(?) V kayak by a Northwestern designer.

After Peters became known for his extraordinary boat building skills beyond the Richmond crowd, he usually would modify the unauthorized plugs before molding them. The Bruin C-1 plug was from his "legal" Ultramax mold. I heard that Ultramax mold was whisked off to North Carolina after the late delivery to the Worlds debacle.

The Bruin was another good cruising C-1 with a Max hull and a shorter (12') length. Bill Hay and Hunter Marrow owned bagged Bruins from Peters, and they both got many miles from their boats. Too bad that mold is not around any more. Not telling where it is or what condition it is in. While not as fast as the Supermax or the Ultramax, it was fun to paddle.

What did John Sweet do with his Ultramax mold?

I was looking at that same boat - I don't know much about glass boats, what is the delamination you refer to? It appears from the difference between the pictures that the white spot in the middle of the last picture may be the camera flash. I don't see it in the other picture. Was that spot the "delamination" a couple people mentioned?