C-Forum

When mad river first introduced their version of the Caption
Lot of people complained about the too soft Royalex. Some
returned their boats.

Has this been fixed? partially fixed.

My old Dagger Caption is showing wear.

Thanks,

Sylvain

Is this another Royalex thread?

I think that the general consensus is that Royalex aunt what it used to be.

I am aware Royalex is not what it used to be but i remember the problem being
a lot worse with the Madriver Caption. Other Royalex canoes at the time were
apparently better. Maybe it was just a bad batch or they use thinner royalezx than
other boat companies. I know some people who sent back their caption to the
retailer and were refunded.

Sylvain

There were soft Royalex problems with other maker canoes also, with requests for return or exchange.

It seems unlikely that Spartech would have supplied an especially soft batch of blanks that just happened to be used to make Captions.

Royalex boats even back in the 90s were showing initial softness. My MR Synergy, bought in 1998, was soft for the first year. It has been fine since then, some of the toughest Royalex I have seen.

If you want a new Caption to replace the one you're wearing out, first do some hand-on pushing and prodding of the new hull to see how flexible it is, and whether you can firm it up with outfitting similar to what is in your older Caption. Too floppy? Choose another kind of ww tandem. If the new boat is adequately stiff, buy it right away and put it aside to "age." You can outfit it and paddle it on easy stuff while its Royalex hardens.