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New Canoe in T-formex

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Dec 16, 2016
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Location
Arkansas
A few weeks ago I stopped by the local Outfitters Store and while looking around, there it was. They just got in some new Esquif Prospecteur 17 in Red. Since royalex is gone, they are now making their canoes in Tformex. After going home and reading about it I decided to bit the bullet and put it in Layaway. I've got a 16' royalex boat but its flat with no rocker. I wanted another tripping boat to handle the white water when needed. I float waters in a canoe from class 0 to 3.
http://www.esquif.com/en/touring/prospecteur-17/
Any thoughts on Tformex?
 
Time will tell Royalex was test extensively since it had to meet a government spec. I read that Wenoha was in preproduction mode. I notices also the prices are crazy 2000 a boat. The price has gone up about 500 dollars since Royalex went out of production. Also there is no retooling needed for it with the royalex equipment. Also it is not as labor intensive the as tough weave tough-stuff or other composited. Luckily I have enough canoes 3 white water solo and 4 tandems (2 royalex and 2 kevlar)
 
Time will tell Royalex was test extensively since it had to meet a government spec. I read that Wenoha was in preproduction mode. I notices also the prices are crazy 2000 a boat. The price has gone up about 500 dollars since Royalex went out of production. Also there is no retooling needed for it with the royalex equipment. Also it is not as labor intensive the as tough weave tough-stuff or other composited. Luckily I have enough canoes 3 white water solo and 4 tandems (2 royalex and 2 kevlar)

Interesting T-Formex thread here:

http://www.myccr.com/phpbbforum/viewtopic.php?f=49&t=45340

I am hopeful that T-formex proves to fill a now vacant plastic boat bill.

I am not surprised at the 2K a boat bill. The demand for Royalex was not financially viable for Spartech or later (pricier) PolyOne to produce.

It remains a mystery as to how exactly T-formex differs in composition from RX, and I will be curious to hear from owners of T-formex hulls after some real world experiences.

Fortunately we have 5 RX solos and 2 tandems.
 
Interesting T-Formex thread here:

http://www.myccr.com/phpbbforum/viewtopic.php?f=49&t=45340

I am hopeful that T-formex proves to fill a now vacant plastic boat bill.

I am not surprised at the 2K a boat bill. The demand for Royalex was not financially viable for Spartech or later (pricier) PolyOne to produce.

It remains a mystery as to how exactly T-formex differs in composition from RX, and I will be curious to hear from owners of T-formex hulls after some real world experiences.

Fortunately we have 5 RX solos and 2 tandems.

I'm with you Mike, it will be interesting to see in let say 5 years what people, non sponsored by Esquif, will have to say about the durability. For me, I always liked composites boat better, even for ww, so it won't affect me, same with the end of royalex, it didn't affect me at all!!

And also it will be interesting to see how much they will be ablate produce and if they will be able to supply demand!
 
Now that t I am older I like the light weight of Kevlar I sold my last discovery 169 it was always used as a loaner I have an OT Tripper and OT Appalachian.
The SR Quentico 17 and 18.5 are so much lighter so I use them for all my flat water paddling I got a Blackfly Octane 1 for my main Solo white water my MR Outrage X and Caption have been relegated to loaners or back up
 
I know the Esquif is pricier with Tformex. My royalex is still in great shape even after 15 years and hoping the Esquif holds up as well.. it will be used alot in class I and II. My next boat will be a kevlar boat for enjoying the still waters.
 
Esquif has a delicate game to play here. Played correctly, they'll come out of bankruptcy with intellectual property rights that will assure future solvency. It'll be interesting to see whether they stay in the canoe business or not, or just move into manufacturing T-Formex. Putting my business management hat on, some restructuring might be prescribed to keep the canoe business separate from the plastics business.
 
I know the Esquif is pricier with Tformex. My royalex is still in great shape even after 15 years and hoping the Esquif holds up as well.. it will be used alot in class I and II. My next boat will be a kevlar boat for enjoying the still waters.

always interesting to see that the composite boats are calm water boats... I abuse mine and they last longer than any plastic canoes I had, with the right layup, and the right paddling skills, they are better boat than plastic by a long run.... That said, if the thing that turn you on is creaking class V and up and bouffing rocks is a pleasure of yours, then plastic is better but it won't last for ever either!!
 
always interesting to see that the composite boats are calm water boats... I abuse mine and they last longer than any plastic canoes I had, with the right layup, and the right paddling skills, they are better boat than plastic by a long run.... That said, if the thing that turn you on is creaking class V and up and bouffing rocks is a pleasure of yours, then plastic is better but it won't last for ever either!!

I never had a composite canoe and I do like them, but with the rock scrapping here, I was afraid it would not last as long. Thats good to know that your composite boat holds up well...
 
Where did the idea that composites and whitewater don't mix.. See Millbrook boats. No state has more rocks than NH and Milbrook has been in business since 1959.. Custom orders so people from other than the East might not know.. They are very popular here. Colden and Hemlock also make composite whitewater boats. Again from the East.

http://www.millbrookboats.com/history.htm
 
Where did the idea that composites and whitewater don't mix..

As someone who's never owned or paddled a composite boat, I can say that the manufacturers have done little to dispel this notion. I'm saving up and looking around out there to get my first composite boat, and I've still got this idea that I'm going to be paddling around in an eggshell... that I'll have to portage around rocks that I'd plow through in an Old Town Discovery, but that it'll be so lightweight that I shouldn't mind too much.

The plastic boat makers are busy showing us just how tough their layups are...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e47frGNaVfg

Meanwhile, the composite boat makers seem to be playing it safe so far as I can tell.
 
Addendum:

I've been watching a lot of YouTube videos, both from canoe owners and manufacturers, trying to get a sense of what's out there. The manufacturers of composite boats almost without fail show their products gliding around on still waters. Not so much as a ripple of wind on the surface is seen in most of their videos, let alone any kind of current or rocks.
 
As someone who's never owned or paddled a composite boat, I can say that the manufacturers have done little to dispel this notion. I'm saving up and looking around out there to get my first composite boat, and I've still got this idea that I'm going to be paddling around in an eggshell... that I'll have to portage around rocks that I'd plow through in an Old Town Discovery, but that it'll be so lightweight that I shouldn't mind too much.

The plastic boat makers are busy showing us just how tough their layups are...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e47frGNaVfg

Meanwhile, the composite boat makers seem to be playing it safe so far as I can tell.


Custom makers like Kaz do not have time to put fancy U tube videos up. You are looking at the mass media picture. Of course thats what mass media wants to feed people..pablum.
Another excellent layup is wood and canvas. If you thicken the construction they do fine.. Old time Maine Guides could field fix them with spruce root and spruce lengths. Not many people these days have the skill.
Paul Meyer is not about to put up You Tube demos either and neither is Dave Curtis. One man shops, these people build boats. Their word of mouth is sufficient advertising.

I think most of you are thinking mass market canoe factories.. and we have many many more one man shops.. Marc O has good composite whitewater boats but he is not interested in mass market business at all.

even Placid which makes strong composite boats spends little time on promotion( they have a staff of three or four). They do not however market for whitewater as their interest is keeping weight down for portages in the Adirondacks which means fewer composite partial and full layers. That said they can do some whitewater.. have done it.. But I know my RapidFire was not laid up for that use.

Eggshell? I dropped my composite Hemlock Peregrine off a cliff in Temagami by accident ( Paradise Lagoon, Wolf Lake route). No damage.

Ask about construction schedules beyond talking about materials per se.. The former is so important.
 
Custom makers like Kaz do not have time to put fancy U tube videos up.

even Placid which makes strong composite boats spends little time on promotion( they have a staff of three or four).


Placid and Millbrook have YouTube sites

placid boatworks site:youtube.com

Millbrook Canoe site:youtube.com
 
Yup the operative word was fancy.. Placids are four or five years old.. Then there was a fire and they devoted themselves to rebuilding the molds. There is a good gel coat repair video there.

Their layup schedule is proprietary as is Dave Curtis but he explains a lot about construction at WPASCR. Which is run near the Slippery Rock Run.. There is a clinic there for whitewater boats. Often the group camping is a combination of the two groups and you will see composite solo whitewater boats.

Oh I bumbled on to this tips for paddling the Shaman which might translate into whitewater in general. Shaman is a composite boat. The RX version never came to being the best I know.
http://www.hemlockcanoe.com/uploads/5/1/2/5/51256169/updated_hemlock_shaman_tips-1.pdf
 
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Yup the operative word was fancy.. Placids are four or five years old.. Then there was a fire and they devoted themselves to rebuilding the molds. There is a good gel coat repair video there.

Their layup schedule is proprietary as is Dave Curtis but he explains a lot about construction at WPASCR. Which is run near the Slippery Rock Run.. There is a clinic there for whitewater boats. Often the group camping is a combination of the two groups and you will see composite solo whitewater boats.

Oh I bumbled on to this tips for paddling the Shaman which might translate into whitewater in general. Shaman is a composite boat. The RX version never came to being the best I know.
http://www.hemlockcanoe.com/uploads/5/1/2/5/51256169/updated_hemlock_shaman_tips-1.pdf
Mohawk canoe made the Sharman almost bought one but got a outrage X at the time now I have a Blackfly Octane 1 Outrage my son uses
 
Alot of great info... I'll let u know how it holds up... May take many years... I do want another canoe in Kevlar or kevlar that has a shell... still not sure which way to go on that... been looking at the Wenonah Spirit II
 
I've been putting my Kevlar and glass canoe through the ringer this year, poling up an down a lot of shallow rocky water. It's got a lot of scratches, probably more scratch than unscratched at this point. I have no fear running it down in the Ozarks in 2017. Of course, I don't worry about it as much since I built it for much less than buying. Mine is thinly ribbed instead of foam cored and it flexes right underneath me as a scrape over and bang into rocks. It actually does better when it comes to abrasion than my royalex mohawk. I've yet to wrap it around anything in a river, hopefully that never happens, as that's one case where a royalex can come back from that composite probably won't. If you want to see a composite on skinny water check out my Frio River trip report. Composite whitewater boats have been around for a long time. Check out Boatbuilders Manual by Charlie Walbridge.

All that said, I'm suprised you found a formex canoe in Arkansas, and am excited to see how it holds up. You're doing some of the first testing. Leading the charge so to speak. Where did pick it up at? I'll have to check them out the next time I head down there.
 
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