Hello All,
I have a problem and hopefully someone can help out. I own a Swift Dumoine with a broken gunnel. My boat was close to wrapping and now has a fold in the gunnel. I now have learned that in all Swift’s gunnels, there is a strip of metal that is used to keep the boat more sturdy. Esquif, who is one of the leading whitewater canoe manufactures, does NOT use metal in any of their gunnels. They say that when the metal bends, it keeps the deformed shape.
Does anyone have any experience in this?
Thanks for your concern
Several solutions…
but the best one would to be to get a replacement gunwale from Swift.
Creative bending, followed by some
sort of bracing and reinforcement with glass and epoxy, will probably bring you a functional result, though perhaps not a pretty one.
It will be more expensive, but maybe marginally easier, to order and install a replacement gunwale.
If Esquif has vinyl gunwales that never (or hardly ever) snap without metal inserts, more power to them. But I don’t see how that applies to your boat.