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Carbon Fiber Delamination

I haven't encountered this. It's obviously a huge manufacturing defect. On wonders why the original owner would have accepted such a canoe, or not demanded a new one afterwards, unless offered some huge discount to take or keep it as is.
 
I had an old racing canoe from the mid-80's that had a similar problem. In that case the core was built from balsa, which I guess was common at the time, and they had a tendency to rot out if it got wet. I never attempted to fix it.

Alan
 
Wow, that is terrible. Why would a manufacturer release that piece of garbage? They should have destroyed that canoe, never released to the public!
 
Esquif Mistral 16 made of twintex. It's an older boat.
I've got an ex rental boat that has luckily not delaminated like that one.
It did however have a pinhole leak that was repaired with gobs of g-flex or something similar. Ugly patch but watertight now.
Certainly not a light canoe but not that heavy either - I'd say 60 pounds.
Oh...not neutrally buoyant. It needs floatation bags. That's an earlier model, like mine. Later ones came with air chambers installed.
IMG_1727.JPG
 
Carbon is hard to see, if it wetted out fully, during infusion.
I'd contact the manufacturer, and see if they would at least repair, or replace.

Jim
 
Did Esquif ever make a carbon fiber canoe? That looks like Twintex, which I recall as being known as very difficult to repair. There were several notable posts in the early 2000's about delaminations with the Mistral's balsa wood core in Twintex. I don't know what Twintex actually is or was, but it's been described as a fiberglass/polypropylene material. At any rate, my research when shopping for a sailboat years ago lead me to understand that balsa wood cored laminates are a thing to avoid. And BTW, Esquif dropped that material from their line. I wouldn't touch that Mistral.
 
Quite a few years ago I seem to remember someone repairing a rotted out core in a Twintex hull. Maybe @pblanc ?

Alan
 
Here's the thread. It was Mistrel as well and used a balsa core.

Any tips on using Coremat?

If memory serves, a prior thread indicated that Muskrat, Alan Gage, and perhaps some others had some experience using Lantor Coremat. I am currently attempting to apply the thinnest variety of Coremat (1.4mm) to rebuild the bottom of a canoe and applied the first of three pieces yesterday. I...
www.canoetripping.net
 
These twintex boats are a pita for the diy.
If I remember correctly, vacuüm is the only way to repair. And even with vacuüm is was not a repair that is 100% succesrate.
 
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