Carbon Fiber Delamination

[CaptainOllieWest]

I came across this boat while browsing the facepage.
Has anyone experienced anything like this?

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[Glenn MacGrady]

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.

 

[Alan Gage]

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

 

[GeoBoy]

Wow, that is terrible. Why would a manufacturer release that piece of garbage? They should have destroyed that canoe, never released to the public!

 

[CaptainOllieWest]

Is this Twintex? I have read that this is difficult to repair.

 

[paulh]

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.

 

[Jim Dodd]

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

 

[Steve in Idaho]

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.

 

[Alan Gage]

Quite a few years ago I seem to remember someone repairing a rotted out core in a Twintex hull. Maybe @pblanc ?

Alan

 

[Alan Gage]

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

 

[Steve in Idaho]

"Satanic vessel"....huh. I'm glad it was Pete saying that. Mucho cred.

 

[dutchlennart]

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.