New Valley Products/Proccess
Hi all,
Just thought I would clarify some of the issues raised in these posts.
Firstly although Frank Goodman is still involved with Valley, day to day operations and the controlling stake in the business is between myself and Jason Buxton. For our part Jason started his kayak industry career at Valley, spending 11 years there before he left for a position heading up R&D at Pyranha Kayaks. Myself, I held down various jobs within design and composites before ending up at P&H, originally working on their competition kayak (using and developing vacuum bagging, pre-pregs etc). From there I became head of development, designing kayaks like the Vela, Capella, Bahiya etc., then a director of the company, then the managing Director. When Pyranha bought P&H from the Patrick family I continued as Brand Manager for two years. in total i was there 13 years. Lets just say after the final 2 years I then felt the desire to plot my own course again. Jason and I knew each other from way back having competed together for the British team in various canoe and kayak disciplines, I couldn’t think of a better business partner.
As you can see we certainly have development experience and all the new products in the 2006 catalogue are either now in production; both Rapiers, both surf kayaks, The Nordkapp LV. or are in final pre-production prototyping and testing; Nordkapp PE, Aquanaut HV in Polyethylene and will be released in January.
Just before Pyranha bought P&H I was doing a lot of development with infusion, even managing to infuse a complete small kayak in one piece, no seams! Under Pyranha this project was shelved the priority being to concentrate on more recreational products, Easky’s etc. Since being at Valley our priority has been refining these better construction methods, one reason being the new high performance models, Rapier, Rush etc. These advances defiantly benefit the whole range of products and 2006 kayaks will be within their stated weight.
The new website is only a stop-gap with an all new one coming very soon, this will be in keeping with the new catalogue. The catalogue is available as a pdf and anyone emailing me can have a copy (please be aware that next week I go to the west coast symposium and will be out of communication for about a week.
Anyway that’s all for now. I hope you enjoy the new stuff when you get to see it, any questions please email me directly
Cheers Peter
Neat
I like a company that pays attention.
Sounds like Valley is really upping the bar. Very excited to see where the new management takes the Co., sounds like they are headed in the right direction.
Great!
There is nothing like a Valley!
Now with improved production, new boats, and combination of new blood with Frank Goodman’s continued imput, it seems to bode very well.
Thinking of the man who designed the Vela et al working with the man who designed the Nordkapp et al is pretty exciting.
new website
This is nice material for your new website. I hope you post something like this there. IMO, there is oftern too little information about the products, principals, processes and designers on company web sites. It’s OK to keep it out of the catalog because of printing costs and the material becoming dated, but it is easy to do, enjoyable to read and helpful to add to a web site.
~wetzool