Hello all,

I'm in Cook County with snow in the woods, ice on the lakes, rain in the sky and nothing better to do than ponder canoe construction. I have extensive experience with Wenonah's center rib, cross rib, and rigid foam core layups in both lake and river canoeing. The center rib flexed over rocks and rarely took shots into the fabric. Cross rib would flex between the ribs but scratch under the foam and weaken in the transition between the ribs and the pure fabric. The rigid foam core had no give, of course, and showed significant wear from river use. I'm curious about the flex-core layup that replaced the center and cross rib construction methods. Does it actually flex to allow rocks to pass without gouging into the fabric? Does it show wear in the transition zone where the core ends? Has anyone done extensive river tripping with it? How does it hold up?

Next question, and I realize I'm dating myself with these ponderings, Wenonah's fiberglass/tuf weave layups used to be a good chunk heavier than the comparable kevlar. My memory is that a cross rib 18' Sundowner in kevlar came in at mid to upper 50s while the tuf weave version was around 68#. Now, there's only a 4# difference between the MNII in tuf weave vs. kevlar flex core. What changed?

What happened with pricing? Wenonah's kevlar canoes used to be significantly more expensive than the glass/tuf weave hulls. Now, there's a $100 difference. Similarly, the ultralight canoes were several hundred $$ more expensive than the cross or center rib versions of the same. Now, flex core and UL cost the same. Why?

Finally, Bell and Wenonah canoes used to cost about the same, if anything Bell seemed to be a smidge more expensive. Now, comparing similar hulls, Wenonah runs 20-25% more than Northstar, at least on the Piragis website. Why?

Bjelde: "Hello all,

I'm in Cook County with snow in the woods, ice on the lakes, rain in the sky and nothing better to do than ponder canoe construction. I have extensive experience with Wenonah's center rib, cross rib, and rigid foam core layups in both lake and river canoeing. The center rib flexed over rocks and rarely took shots into the fabric. Cross rib would flex between the ribs but scratch under the foam and weaken in the transition between the ribs and the pure fabric. The rigid foam core had no give, of course, and showed significant wear from river use. I'm curious about the flex-core layup that replaced the center and cross rib construction methods. Does it actually flex to allow rocks to pass without gouging into the fabric? Does it show wear in the transition zone where the core ends? Has anyone done extensive river tripping with it? How does it hold up?

Next question, and I realize I'm dating myself with these ponderings, Wenonah's fiberglass/tuf weave layups used to be a good chunk heavier than the comparable kevlar. My memory is that a cross rib 18' Sundowner in kevlar came in at mid to upper 50s while the tuf weave version was around 68#. Now, there's only a 4# difference between the MNII in tuf weave vs. kevlar flex core. What changed?

What happened with pricing? Wenonah's kevlar canoes used to be significantly more expensive than the glass/tuf weave hulls. Now, there's a $100 difference. Similarly, the ultralight canoes were several hundred $$ more expensive than the cross or center rib versions of the same. Now, flex core and UL cost the same. Why?

Finally, Bell and Wenonah canoes used to cost about the same, if anything Bell seemed to be a smidge more expensive. Now, comparing similar hulls, Wenonah runs 20-25% more than Northstar, at least on the Piragis website. Why?"

Brian from Wenonah here. I can help with these questions.

Flex core constructions have a foam core without ribs and slightly more fabric than ultralight constructions. This, combined with the fact that they come with gel coat as standard, makes them somewhat more durable than our ultralight hulls. However, they aren't a replacement for the toughness of center rib.

Center rib construction was replaced with Royalex, which offered superior impact resistance in whitewater use. T-Formex currently fills this niche for Wenonah and is offered in many of our most popular designs.

Flex core construction replaced cross rib construction. It offers superior stiffness without the wear associated with the ribs going across the hull. As you note, this construction causes wear at the ribs with repeated dragging over obstacles.

Weight came down on Tuf-Weave canoes as we refined the Flex-Core construction. The biggest weight savings came from eliminating the inner sand gel coat layer on these layups. This also made them more expensive for us to produce as they had to be laid up as precisely as our aramid canoes. Without the inner gel coat you would see any imperfection.

This partially explains the increase in cost of the Tuf-Weave and Flex Core Aramid constructions. In reality it costs us just as much to produce these layups as it does to build our ultralight canoes. These canoes take longer to build overall than ultralight models and contain more materials. The ultralight cores are more labor intensive to build because of the additional ribs, so things even out somewhat when you account for materials, labor, mold availability and scheduling factors.

With respect to pricing I anticipate that pricing is continuing to evolve across the industry and we are likely to see price parity similar to historic pricing as materials and labor costs work their way through the marketplace.

Hope this helps!

Brian

Thanks Brian! I hoped you'd weigh in. A couple comments.

I remember when Wenonah introduced Tuf-Weave (again aging myself). They pitched it as the laminate that would make Royalex obsolete. Obviously, it didn't go that way. That said, there is room in the market for composite canoes that can handle some amount of whitewater. I used to (and still hope to) take mixed river/lake trips in Ontario involving extended flatwater travel, rapids, and portaging. Northstar has introduced IXP and Nova Craft has Tuff Stuff. Sawyer used to make Expedition Kevlar. All these canoes use more layers of fabric rather than foam cores and come in at 60-65#, 10 pounds lighter than comparable Royalex/T-Formex. They have the sharp entry of composite canoes and plenty of durability. I'm curious if Wenonah is considering an all fabric layup to fill this niche in the market?

Bjelde: "Thanks Brian! I hoped you'd weigh in. A couple comments.


I remember when Wenonah introduced Tuf-Weave (again aging myself). They pitched it as the laminate that would make Royalex obsolete. Obviously, it didn't go that way. That said, there is room in the market for composite canoes that can handle some amount of whitewater. I used to (and still hope to) take mixed river/lake trips in Ontario involving extended flatwater travel, rapids, and portaging. Northstar has introduced IXP and Nova Craft has Tuff Stuff. Sawyer used to make Expedition Kevlar. All these canoes use more layers of fabric rather than foam cores and come in at 60-65#, 10 pounds lighter than comparable Royalex/T-Formex. They have the sharp entry of composite canoes and plenty of durability. I'm curious if Wenonah is considering an all fabric layup to fill this niche in the market?"

Hi Bjelde,

Not sure if you've had a chance to read this yet. It goes into Royalex and T-Formex in a lot of detail and outlines our philosophy on these materials vs composites.

https://kitchi-gami.com/2020/12/27/t-formex-canoes/

If I'm not mistaken, our use of Tuf-Weave fabric predates our use of Royalex and goes back to the early 80's or before. We went from center rib construction to Royalex because of the superior properties of that material and because paddlers preferred Royalex to composites in certain applications.

When Poly One shut down Royalex production in 2014 every company that used the material had to come up with an alternative. In essence what happened is every company played to their strengths, whether those were composites or rotomolding. Wenonah promoted Tuf-Weave as a Royalex alternative at that time because our long history of use of the material had proven to us that it was highly impact resistant and durable.

However, we believe that no composite has the performance profile of Royalex and when T-Formex was developed we immediately partnered with Esquif to bring it to market.

All-fiber/no-core composites constructions aren't new. In fact they're some of the oldest ways to build a composite canoe. The new laminates take advantage of innovations in materials and technology but the general principle remains the same. There is a reason that whitewater kayaks transitioned from composites to roto plastic as soon as the technology was developed. High impact plastics do a better job than composites in certain applications.

With respect to Wenonah foam core laminates. My experience with these constructions is that they are quite durable in use. The full foam core bottom eliminates stress points and distribute wear broadly across the hull and the foam we use has a very high density and compression strength. Most of the time the wear you see on these boats is scratches in the gel coat.

Even our ultralight skin coat canoes are surprisingly tough given their weight. These canoes take an absolute beating as Boundary Waters rental canoes then are sold as used canoes and keep on paddling for decades. For most people's needs these canoes are the right balance of light weight and strength. And the wear that most of these canoes see over their lifespan is largely cosmetic.

We have the benefit of seeing fifty years or more of Wenonahs out there in the field being used and abused in various ways. This has given us confidence in the durability of our laminates. That said, we do believe that T-Formex offers advantages that can't be found in composite constructions and we prefer it for canoes that require maximum durability.

Hope this helps!

Brian

Thanks Brian. You've been very informative. I'd read your article on T-Formex before, but it was certainly worthy of a second read. Regarding the durability of your laminate canoes, they'll take a lot more abuse than many people think. I'm a wet footer, but a quality composite is a far cry from fragile. Regarding replacing Royalex, I note that Old Town is making their Penobscot 17 in plastic. The thing is advertised at 90#, a full 25# more than the Royalex version.

Bjelde: "Thanks Brian. You've been very informative. I'd read your article on T-Formex before, but it was certainly worthy of a second read. Regarding the durability of your laminate canoes, they'll take a lot more abuse than many people think. I'm a wet footer, but a quality composite is a far cry from fragile. Regarding replacing Royalex, I note that Old Town is making their Penobscot 17 in plastic. The thing is advertised at 90#, a full 25# more than the Royalex version."

Thanks Bjelde.

I'm sure you've read the book Distant Fires, about the two young guys from Duluth who paddled to Hudson Bay in the 80's? Wenonah loaned them an Odyssey for the trip that had been damaged in an accident. Ultralight aramid skin coat. The boat was a demo that flew off the trailer when the front rope broke. The stern rope cut it in half when the canoe lifted off at highway speed. Wenonah patched the boat back into shape and loaned it to those guys for their trip. They paddled it 1,700 miles on Lake Superior, up the Pigeon River, across Lake Winnipeg and down the God's River to York Factory. Ran a lot of whitewater along the way.

I asked Mike C what the boat looked like when we got it back. He said it looked like a Boundary Waters rental canoe after a couple seasons. These boats are remarkably tough.

Brian

Yes, I read that excellent book and remember the canoe they were in. Sadly, the author was a test pilot for Cirrus and died in a plane crash. His canoeing partner is my doctor, something I didn't know until well after I started going to him.

My first canoe was a kevlar center rib C1W. My second was a Sundowner 18 that I bought in '88. Three of the guys I tripped with upgraded from aluminum to Sundowners after canoeing with me. One of them bought the kevlar UL version and subjected it to a lot of abuse over the years, including much dragging on the Albany River in a low water year. Plenty of scratches and perhaps a cracked rib or two but no holes. I'm sure he's still paddling it.

Bjelde: "Yes, I read that excellent book and remember the canoe they were in. Sadly, the author was a test pilot for Cirrus and died in a plane crash. His canoeing partner is my doctor, something I didn't know until well after I started going to him.


My first canoe was a kevlar center rib C1W. My second was a Sundowner 18 that I bought in '88. Three of the guys I tripped with upgraded from aluminum to Sundowners after canoeing with me. One of them bought the kevlar UL version and subjected it to a lot of abuse over the years, including much dragging on the Albany River in a low water year. Plenty of scratches and perhaps a cracked rib or two but no holes. I'm sure he's still paddling it."

I had heard that sad news about Scott Anderson. Wild that his paddling partner ended up as your doc. Small world indeed.

I paddled the C1W a bit when I worked at Rutabaga years ago. They used to come in fairly regularly as used boats. Always did regret not picking one up!

Brian