Mohawk says they’re working on trying to produce boats again and to keep checking their website.
They made some good stuff. Hope they can get it done.
Hmm, well we will see.
I hope they are able to produce boats again. But they only molded Royalex canoes after the original Mohawk Canoe was sold. So it would seem that they could only do so if their molds and ovens were still in good shape and adaptable to the use of T-formex and they were able to buy that from Esquif.
Years ago now, around the death of Royalex in 2013-2014 they claimed that they would have a new blow-molded polyethylene whitewater canoe, “The Phiend”, which was “coming soon”. Nothing came of it.
You can’t beat the old ones. I was out in mine on Saturday - Whitewater 16 from 1989 - built like a tank.
I’m assuming new designs, but who knows, at this point.
I put a lot of hard whitewater miles on a Viper 11. It was a great but fairly unforgiving OC1. They had some great WW boats in their heyday, including the Probe and XL series, along with the Vipers. The Probes had much softer chines and were great for beginner and intermediate paddlers. The XL series made for great tripping boats if WW was involved. There are still quite a few of these around because they were such good boats. The harder chines on the Vipers made them much more responsive, but much more likely to grab an edge and flip you.
Here I am in the Viper 11 with the dog in the Gunnison Gorge circa 1999 or 2000.
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There’s a good-looking Mohawk Jensen tandem for sale near me for $600.
My Odyssey 14 was a great all around boat. It’d be nice to see them make a comeback.
Unless Mohawk was able and willing to use T-formex to mold their prior hull designs, and the molds were still available and usable with that material, any new Mohawk canoes would have to be new designs by necessity. And per their website, they have no intention to use T-formex in the foreseeable future.
Although the original Mohawk Canoe Company founded by Darryl Leidigh made and sold many composite boats, the more recent incarnation of Mohawk Canoe only ever made Royalex boats. So any new boats that Mohawk would make would also require a manufacturing technique they have not before used, either composite construction, roto-molding, or thermo-forming solid PE boats. And they would be competing with multiple, well-established makers who have used those technologies for years.
Their one attempt at blow-molding a PE canoe came to nothing after a year or more of wasted effort. So I remain pretty skeptical. But I agree they had many good designs, quite a few of which I have paddled at one time or another.
Regarding making new canoes, the Mohawk website says that they are in full blown R&D trying to reinvent the wheel.
The email they sent me says that they intend to make boats again but are just in the very early stages.
It’s too bad Mohawk isn’t producing canoe right now because it seems like canoe and kayak sales are outstripping production. Things are getting better, but it’s still really hard to snag a new boat before it’s sold.
To back this up:
https://www.rei.com/c/canoes