A bad break

[RodeoClown]

One thing to keep in mind with the internal stress argument is that in with a rotomolded boat, the plastic will cool from the outside of the boat to the inside of the boat- the air inside the mold is still hot, so the inner surface of the boat will be the last part to cool. (unless the molder is pushing internal air into the mold during cooling, but I don't know that anyone is doing that.) That's different from the compression molded sheets in that study that cool from both sides. I don't know what difference that would make, but it seems like comparing apples and pears.

Also, the conventional wisdom is that it's overcooking that makes the boats brittle.

[milkman]

The sample grows. Third time out in a new Prelude, another cracked Prelude. That makes 4 in the last 2 months. This new one should be a warranty issue. It broke at the very end of the seat outfitting--a place where there is little body weight. And no, it wasn't done in a boof, but just running a class 3 rapid.

All four boats are 2008 vintage. My boat of 5 years is now welded and I took it out yesterday for the first time and I have hopes it will continue to provide a few years of service. It has proven itself reliable. Next up for welding is my wife's old Prelude, which has proven itself with 3 years of service.

The two suspect boats are the one with 20 times on the river, and this new one with 3 outings. The 20-timer, I still think that was really bad luck--a very sharp rock right under the seat. I'm still optimistic that once I get that fixed it will provide some years of use. My wife's new boat, that seems flawed. Perhaps it was a case of, as Gonzo says, "undercooking PE causes brittleness."

Esquif has had years of experience now in molding PE boats since these were made. I'm keeping the faith.

Postscript: Doing a little research, I found that Esquif acquired the Prelude mold in 2007 and thus was just getting into PE boat production around the time these boats were made.

[Cboater9]

This honestly boggles my mind...you have had four Preludes, all of which have cracked, two of which have cracked before the boats hit 20 runs.

It's not your fault. It's not the boat's fault. Esquif simply cannot mold boats in PE that meet the demands of this sport.

Everyone knows the disaster that was the original L'Edge. And many people believe that Esquif has fixed the problem with the L'Edge Lite. They haven't

More L'Edge Lites have broken in the last year or so than all broken Blackflys ever. Think about that. Jeremy has molded hundreds of boats in a variety of shapes, and fewer of them have broken than all the busted L'Edge Lites.

There have been multiple broken Preludes this year, including one that was completely destroyed, almost ripped in half, in less than three months of use.

Esquif has had years, years to address this problem. They can't get it fixed. Meanwhile, the dude making boats in his garage has put out five new designs and has only seen three consumer boats broken. Seriously, Esquif needs to get this fixed, and in the mean time, I'm tired of sugar coating it. Their boats are going to break fast and catastrophically, period.

[ian123]

Esquif has obviously been working on the l'edge. I m not sure what you mean by "fixed"- broken boats happen- you can't "fix" that. You can only make boats more durable which Esquif has done and hopefully will continue to do. Are they currently as tough as the blackflys? No.

I don't think either company is moulding anything for themselves. To say that Jeremy/Blackfly is moulding "this" and Esquif can't mould "that" isn't accurate. I wonder how much control the companies actually have over the moulding process. Probably not as much as you are suggesting.

[JimW]

Hmm, passionate post there but it is starting to look like a pattern, although of the few L'edges and Blackfly's in the UK I think I have only heard of one that has broken (L'edge).

There are rumours of next years Esquif prices floating around the UK forum, looks like T-formex has caused a price hike across the board, including the polythene and composite Esquif boats (or it may simply be that import costs have gone up) - just wondering if the NA market has seen the new Esquif prices yet and if there really is a hike accross the board, or that's just something affecting UK imports (possibly for completely unrelated reasons)?

[milkman]

I'm not so ready to knock Esquif, a manufacturer I applaud as being one of the most supportive of our sport. Like I said, two of the Preludes held up for 5 and 3 years respectively with lots of paddling in all kinds of conditions. I'm completely satisfied with the life I got out of those boats, and now welded, I hope to get more life of them. The new boat is definitely flawed. I'm taking photos of it for warranty and noticed it actually cracked in two different places. The 20-timer met a really sharp rock--you can see a groove getting deeper and deeper until it's under the seat and the crack starts.

One thing I will say is that a lot of kayaks seem to be made of a glossier, more slippery PE plastic. I have half a Liquid Logic hull in my garage that I'm using to practice welding and it's pretty tough.

[the great gonzo]

Jeremy, I have heard both that under as well as overcooking cause brittleness. But I have no personal rotomolding experience, it's all second hand information from folks who are and were directly in the industry.

As far as the molding is concerned it was my understanding (and this could be inaccurate) that Esquif is molding their own PE boats. When Voodoo Technologies, the then owner of Riot Kayaks, went bankrupt, one of the assets that was aucioned off was the rotomolding oven. I followed that auction quite closely and looked a bit into the oven, as far I know the oven ended up being picked up by Esquif and is now used there. The oven, if it is indeed used by Esquif, has a few years under its belt, It was as far as I could find out at the time, built in the late 1980's and was initially used by New Wave kayaks. When New Wave went out of business, the oven was picked up by Savage and when Savage went out of business, it ended up with Voodoo Technologies/ Riot in Montreal.
If anyone has more and/ or more accurate information I would love to hear it.

TGG!

[JimW]

I know nothing about the provenance of any ovens, but my Glide has been tough as old boots so if Esquif are using the same oven, I reckon the oven isn't the problem, if indeed there is a problem.

Is it possible that the percentage of breakages is identical between Esquif and Blackfly but there are considerably more Esquif PE boats out there? That was certainly an argument that was put forward years ago when a UK manufacturer appeared to have a high breakage rate, although I never really believed it because almost everyone I knew was paddling Eskimo or Prijon Boats from Germany (Eskimo were moulded by Prijon in those days).

[RodeoClown]

Jeremy, I have heard both that under as well as overcooking cause brittleness. But I have no personal rotomolding experience, it's all second hand information from folks who are and were directly in the industry.

As far as the molding is concerned it was my understanding (and this could be inaccurate) that Esquif is molding their own PE boats. When Voodoo Technologies, the then owner of Riot Kayaks, went bankrupt, one of the assets that was aucioned off was the rotomolding oven. I followed that auction quite closely and looked a bit into the oven, as far I know the oven ended up being picked up by Esquif and is now used there. The oven, if it is indeed used by Esquif, has a few years under its belt, It was as far as I could find out at the time, built in the late 1980's and was initially used by New Wave kayaks. When New Wave went out of business, the oven was picked up by Savage and when Savage went out of business, it ended up with Voodoo Technologies/ Riot in Montreal.
If anyone has more and/ or more accurate information I would love to hear it.

TGG!

I was under the impression that that the Savage oven went overseas to Robson. I want to say that Savage went out of business about the same time New Wave stopped making boats- or maybe before that. Savage shut down around 1999 or 2000, I can't remember about New Wave. The Riot oven was a NW oven- but that's to say it was built by "NW Rotofab." In addition to making boats, John Schreiner was also building quite a few ovens, and many of them are still in use in the paddlesports industry- Jackson is using them, and I believe Liquid Logic is as well. Esquif did buy the Riot oven, but I was under the impression they hadn't gotten it set up and running and were using a contract molder, but I don't know what the status of this is.

[Cboater9]

Is it possible that the percentage of breakages is identical between Esquif and Blackfly but there are considerably more Esquif PE boats out there?

No.

1) The breakage rate on Esquif's original L'Edge was over 50%. I know of two 2010 L'Edges still uncracked, and while I'm sure there are others, over 100 of the original "500" cracked in the eastern US alone. Most of their sales are in Canada anyways. Blackfly breakage rate is way less than that.

2) There aren't significantly more L'Edges out there anymore. As paddlers have lost confidence in Esquif, more are turning to Blackfly. In the eastern US there are more Options than Lite L'Edges, even though more Lite L'Edges have broken than Options

[ian123]

L'edges obviously don't stand up as well as Options but it's unlikely that you would you know how many blackflys and esquif boats have been sold in the SE with any certainty. I m calling bullshitt, especially since the bullshitter is anonymous.

[insolence]

people get passionate about it quickly. I take it not only with a grain, but with a whole barrel of salt since nobody really has exact statistics or numbers to proove one or the other theorem. Subjective perceivings are not convincing.

there are also no studies on how much load a boat can or should take, a lot of factors play a role. Frequency and load pattern of use, weight of the paddler, storage of the boat, you name it.

Most pro kayakers go trough one or two boats a year. There is not that many pro canoers out there as there are pro kayakers, but I think you get what I'm saying.
It is also to be considered that the hull geometry of an OC is open and therefore less structurally stable than a decked boat

Not sugarcoating anything here, just reminding certain folks that their theorems are not very useful without an exact knowledge of the facts and mechanics behind it.

[PAC]

Any chance you can post pix of the cracks (upclose), showing location on boat's hull, the boat's outfitting and serial numbers? Just wondering if there is more than one contributing factor.

[milkman]

I'm not sure posting a parade of cracks is worth much. Three have been under the seat, one was in front of the knee. All were clean cracks. All looked much like the ones we've seen posted for the early L'Edges. I will post later the four serial numbers ... it would be interesting to see if there is any connection.

[PAC]

I'm thinking cracking may very well be do to the placement / design of the out fitting in relation to the actual boat design(s).

Stresses being applied to specific "weaker" point(s) that fail when hitting something hard. Usually there are more than one factor in relation to a material failure.

Just a thought.