here’s an interesting experience
from an old friend who emailed me swapping stories about the NDK from his shop that he regularly paddles.
“…Sounds a lot like the Romany Surf I paddle!! Surfing at Tofino I ripped the
combing off from just bracing in the boat when getting tossed by a
wave…all be it big, but shouldn’t have happened. Same deal spent 3 days
filling and patching. Next trip to Skookumchuck I ripped the seat from the
combing…back to repairs. Next trip to Tofino I broke the seat and the
combing!! Back to repair… But this time I had our repair guy do a
beautiful job on it. Took out the seat, built new seat posts, reglassed the
entire underside of the combing, remade the seat and reinstalled the same
seat. Its really beefed up now, but I have 3 days at Skook next week then a
week in Tof. at the end of the month!! Needless to say it will be broken by
month end.”
caveat emptor
Nigels warranty ?
Mine leaked and they told me to go to a hardware store and patch an air bubble from the lay up with epoxy.
Great boat, rubish workmanship.
Which they?
It seemed while Simon Osborn was Nigel’s man to deal with issues that things actually got dealt with - at least I found Simon to be responsive.
I haven’t followed others efforts or tried to get anything resolved with NDK since Simon decided he’d rather be paddling.
Marketing…
Or maybe a post-design change in the way the boat was assembled imposed by non-paddling marketing folks because they wanted something that’d fit a larger number of paddlers. Then it takes two years for whatever corporate entity or person in the chain of command to stop blustering and admit they got it wrong.
Like that never happens to a perfectly good design…