Purchasing my first yak soon, and a Boreal Epsilon P200 is near the top of my list, but I see the company went bankrupt. Should this stop me from making this purchase? Demo’d this yak and did like it, although I had been looking for a 15’ instead of the 17’. The quality looked good, but the only concern was the rudder system without fixed footbraces. Any suggestions or opinions would be greatly appreciated.
I wouldn’t let that stop you
Boreal made some nice boats. I have a plastic fjord and have paddled a baffin. I think their plastic and product was excellent, they just couldn’t compete with the johnsons outdoors and confluence watersports for volume of sales.
So i would say if you like it, go for it, you won’t be able to find another one as easily after this if you decide you do want it, and they generally hold their worth pretty well, so you can always change your mind and sell it later on and if the foot braces are a deal breaker, you can put in your own gas peddle type easy enough.
Boreal Design is still with us…
The company was bought a couple of weeks ago by another Quebec based company, Riot.
http://www.paddlinginstructor.com/industry-stuff/4502-boreal-designs-purchased-by-riot-kayaks.html
I suspect that Riot would honour any existing warranties and that (at least in the short term)obtaining replacement parts from Riot/Boreal will be possible/straightforward.
Riot intend to keep Boreal as a “premium brand” but are unlikely to re-open Boreal’s factory. I expect they will move production to China where most (all?) of Riot’s boats are already produced.
Good to see Boreal survived
Be interesting to see what changes over the next few years as they are integrated to riot/azul.
Not a good sign
I lost all respect for Riot during the bankruptcy and the move of production to China. I am not sure that all they did was ethical (although apparently legal). I have several Riot boats from the Corran Addison period and they are great. But once he left the boats were, in my opinion, second rate. YMMV.