The Carbon Fiber Future of Whitewater Kayaking
By Rocky Thompson on March 31st, 2009
If kayakers would take a break from grooming their beards to do a little material science research we could have one of these on top of every Subaru by now. The Wave Sport Project 54Cx play boat features a full carbon fiber hull that weighs about as much as a boat made from egg shells though this is slightly more durable. Carbon fiber’s been around for a long time, but the problem has been creating a cost effective way to bring it to a kayak until this Wave Sport showed up at the last Gauley River Fest. After all, in carbon fiber bikes manufacturing the molds for all the joints alone costs millions-it must be a massive project to create an entire play boat with this process. Well, it’s the first one that costs a million, and then the next several thousand are cheap.
The up front costs aren’t the problem.
Finding people that want to pay that much over and over for a carbon play boat is the problem.
Carbon construction isn’t hard, or expensive to develop tooling (it costs slightly more than the material to make the original, and once you’ve made one, you can make a ton. The issue is finding people to pay for a product that costs triple what the competition does due to the fact that it’s so much more in labor and material costs.
For a typical rotomolded play boat, the operations are,, pour a large measured amount of polymer into rotomold-mold, apply heat and twisting (wait till machine is done).
Let cool mostly, de-mold, rivet/screw/push on bulkheads and any other add ons, apply logo sticker, pack and ship.
For Carbon (pre-preg as it looks) there’s a lot of very design specific cutting and laying in per half, then vacuum bagging and cooking (set to 400 for 4 hours under 25 pounds of pressure in an osha compatible autoclave). Then repeat the process for the other half. Next seam them together (the real trick). Finally go through the last steps mentioned before (don’t forget the body materials cost triple).
I’m sure the boat is AMAZING!!! I hope they can find the buyers though. I’d be interested to see what they’ve done in terms of stiffening on the inside (with foam overmolded sections most likely.)
Looks like a REALLY fun boat!
carbon fiber isn’t exactly a new technology in kayaks. this may be the first playboat made of carbon fiber but i’ve seen numerous slalom kayaks made from carbon.
Making a playboat out of carbon seems pretty silly unless you are extremely good at not hitting anything hard or have a whole lot of money. Those two things seem to be inversely proportional.
I fail to see the point– at least a realistically useful one. Yes, they will be lighter so your triple helix donkey flip pan am’s will be totally killer, but it’s not like you are going to hike your playboat very far into a run. And when weight is important like in a long wilderness trip, really good repair skills will be at a premium. That’s another place you aren’t likely to see playboats.
So this will end up being something for the pros to play around with and have their sponsors fix for them while they chat up the hotties in between rounds.
Carbon slalom kayaks cost only a little bit more to buy in the uk, than plastic boats. They are rigid and strong but their owners handle them carefully. Slalom boats tend to snap across the tail as they’re so thin at that point but a short boat wouldn’t have this vulnerability. Their resale value isn’t as good though.
Avoiding abrasive surfaces and impacts is part of the skill of paddling a composite boat. As a composite boat paddler moving onto plastics, I’ve eventually got my head round that contact with rocks can be good. Plastic paddlers will presumably be faced with the same learning challenge, only in reverse. Light boats are stunningly good fun, and worth the bit of respect they need.
Composite boats deserve a future: do Wavesport do them in sparkly finishes?
Wendy
I paddled a carbon/Kevlar surf kayak a few times and the difference between that boat and my old plastic Riot Dominatrix was ridiculous. Granted I was only flat spinning and carving, I could see how a light carbon boat with a very high power to weight ratio and really fast hull could be helpful. I loved the feeling of hearing the water slap on the bottom of the boat, it was so stiff.
Also, as far as bikes go, the difference between my carbon road bike and steel framed bike is huge. The stiffer carbon frame is insane out of the saddle.
Carbon play boats aren’t for everyone, that’s why there’s only 50 of them. At least paddlers who want to try it out on some deep water US play spots (rock island, Glenwood, Salida, Skook, ocean surf, etc) will have the chance to get one now without having to order them from Europe and pay for international shipping.
i bought the wavesport project 54cx got it shipped to the uk by colarado kayaks used it once hit a boulder whilst back surfing it split the hull where thejoint in the hull is and had two 3 inch cracks at the back of the deck so i dont think this is the future of white water kayaking