Pros/Cons: new Thermoformed vs used FG

I’m looking for a 16-17’ Kayak that is at most 55 lbs.

My main use will be lake/river.



Polyethylene is out of the equation (too heavy) and

Kevlar/Carbon is not in my price range.



On paper, it seems that Kayak in thermoformed ABS fits my need: lighter than Poly, but tough enough to withstand some abuse (e.g. accidently paddling over rocks in shallow rivers). They are obviously more expensive, e.g. 2500 $ (cdn) for a new BD Epsilon T100.



At that price (or even lower), I can see some used fiberglass kayaks (5 to 10 yrs old) like the Soltstice GT, BD Alvik, BD Fjord, etc.



I would expect the weight to be marginally better for composite. The thermo will probably be more resistant to abrasion/impact, but will also have a shorter lifespan (depending on how old the used FG is ?)



Are there any factors I’m missing to help me decide between both options ?






I’ve found fiberglass boats a bit
heavier than thermoformed ABS. Demoed three fiberglass LV boats all in the 15’ range this summer. Weight for each was 50# or a bit over. Thermoformed 15’ LV boat weighed 47#. Not a major difference, but three pounds is three pounds.



Where are you located?

Consider thermoforming
I paddle with a group that goes out a couple times weekly and does two or three big trips annually, so I see and move a fair numbers of boats regularly. The boats seem to include 60 lb fiberglass Valley kayaks, 50 lb thermoforming Eddylines, and 30-40 lb Kevlar ultralight Stellars. Trust me those heavy expedition grade fiberglass boats are heavy carrying them 100 ft to the water or putting them on top of a pickup. They are like the thermoforming Eddylines nearly indestructible. Although if I had to chose between a heavily used 10 year old thermoforming and an equivalent used fiberglass I would likely see a longer and lower maintenance future for the thermoforming boat. Those ultralight boats are a joy to load but in our group they do not seem to hold up as well.

Definitely thermoformed
I´ve had 16 footers in Expedition Kevlar, Fiberglas, Thermoformed, and Poly and my favorite is the thermoformed. Light weight, rigid hull, doesn´t scratch easily and very hard to dent or break. In Canada I recommend you check out Eddyline and Delta. I prefer the Delta but both are good companies.

Solstice is
great kayak and will last my friend had a few Eddylines that failed at the cockpit rim. Glass would be my choice. You should be able to get one for way less that 2500 USD

You’ve narrowed your price & weight rang
Now, pick a boat that fits you, and your paddling style.



You’ll be IN the boat for hours, but only a few minutes carrying it.



I have a 60 lb fiberglass boat (bought used). Though I weight 100lb dripping weight and not that strong, I have no trouble getting the boat to the water.


…Montreal area
Dont think there is any dealer carrying Eddyline in Quebec. New York State isnt’ too far, but



There is one dealer that is mentioned on the Delta website, but there website does not show any delta model. Maybe I’ll call them.

Question

– Last Updated: Sep-09-16 9:56 PM EST –

I paddle a 60 pound poly SOT kayak, and I've looked at the Eddyline SOT in Thermoform ABS. Their Caribbean 14 weighs 50 pounds. I have emailed Eddyline a couple times to ask questions about the kayak. I live in Utah and paddle lakes and rivers up to easy class I. Both times I have talked with them, they say their kayak would be a great fit for me except the part about paddling on rivers. They say their kayak wouldn't be suitable for any river with a chance of encountering rocks. Their website claims better strength & abrasion resistance than poly. The comments I'm seeing in this thread seem to support that it's sturdy stuff. I'm puzzled about why they keep steering me away from their product????

What I have seen twice
Both Eddyline boats. We were paddling down rivers with rocks. On two different times I saw eddylines crack open. What happened was the boat got on top of a rock that was mostly submerged, when that happened it put a lot of force on one area and the boats split open. A roto mold plastic boat would handle with ease, in fact I do that just so I can spin the boat around with my roto mold plastic kayak (Jackson Karma RG). in fact were the keel line along the bottom of some of the eddlyines can crack open if you not careful while sitting in the boat on dry land. Now iam not saying there weak boats but not really something for rivers with a lot of rocks. So it depends on what type of river your talking about. Small twisty rocky creek/river no so good. Everything else just fine for thermo formed.

rocks and thermoform
Here is a youtube video of a Delta thermoform kayak and a guy beating the dickens out it with a hammer and no damage.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nkdaqwQxiFc



Do a Google search for Frontenac Outfitters in Canada for several really good video reviews of the Delta boats. Frontenac Outfitters is just north of Niagara Falls and you get a good exchange rate if you drive into Canada and buy.

I had a Enlightened T16 thermoform kayak for several years and used it on the James River in Virginia which is nothing but rocks and granite ledges and I never worried about hurting it.

I know I’m coming into this discussion late, but where on earth are you guys finding glass boats that heavy? I have four kayaks, one of which is a Seaward Chilco that is almost 19 feet long. It weighs 55 pounds fully rigged with a rudder; and Seaward is not known for making exceptionally lightweight boats, just exceptionally well made ones. Now lets talk lightweight glass boats. Epic makes the V5 which is a little over 14 feet long. Fully rigged it weighs 35.3 pounds. Their ultra light version weighs in at 27.5 pounds. While the ultra light is for racing and won’t take the abuse, the glass version is just fine and both are infinitely repairable. Additionally the repairs can be made to as new appearance.

As for Headwaters2’s video of hitting it with a hammer: Small impact resistance is not the same thing as hitting a large submerged rock in moving water. The impact is not the issue, it’s the sudden change in weight distribution. I’ve seen a thermoformed boat split in half at the seam where the top and bottom halves are put together after an incident much the same as described by dc9mm. I believe the stress on the seam due to the flexibility of the product was the culprit in the case I observed. A glass boat is stiffer and probably would have survived it with nothing more than scuffs and scratches just like a poly boat.

@igbtq2 said:
I know I’m coming into this discussion late, but where on earth are you guys finding glass boats that heavy? I have four kayaks, one of which is a Seaward Chilco that is almost 19 feet long. It weighs 55 pounds fully rigged with a rudder; and Seaward is not known for making exceptionally lightweight boats, just exceptionally well made ones. Now lets talk lightweight glass boats. Epic makes the V5 which is a little over 14 feet long. Fully rigged it weighs 35.3 pounds. Their ultra light version weighs in at 27.5 pounds. While the ultra light is for racing and won’t take the abuse, the glass version is just fine and both are infinitely repairable. Additionally the repairs can be made to as new appearance.

The V5 is a surf ski. Nice ski but not a good choice for the shallow rocky rivers the OP mentioned. Or for cold weather paddlers.

Valley, North Shore, Tiderace, NDK Pilgrim Expedition, P&H Cetus composite kayaks all 50# or more. Specs stated at their websites.

I think a lot of folks compare the non-structural gel-coat of a composite with the thermoform ABS, which is the structure. You wear through the gelcoat along the keel on the stern, the structure is not yet compromised, you dab on a new layer of gelcoat, and you’re good as new. You wear through the thermoform ABS along the keel on the stern, you’ve worn through the structure, and you have a problem. A local smallcraft shop said they’ve seen several thermoform kayaks with holes worn through the keel at the stern. They described it as a much tougher issue than a small glass repair. People tend to apply some maintenance when gelcoat wears off or chips off in a spot, and most often the composite structure hasn’t been compromised. So if you discover that your gelcoat has more wear than thermoform ABS after an ill-advised run through shallows, the wear does not necessarily represent the same thing on the composite boat.

I recently watched a guy take an empty skin-on-frame, drop it on the ground, and start kicking it around on the ground to show the toughness of the skin. The problem is that the boat is very light. You drop my weight plus gear, and now you have over 200 extra pounds weighing down on it. Now take some momentum, and contact with a point on the bottom, and it starts to have more practical meaning. That’s not to short-change skin-on-frame construction in any way. It’s just pointing out the limitations of some seemingly impressive demonstrations. The thing is, it only takes a singular incident to go beyond the structure’s capabilities. I would guess if a company is steering you away from their product, they really don’t want warranty claims and bad publicity for their product from your intended use, because they know better. A stiff piece of plastic wears less easily (more abrasion resistant), is much stiffer in terms of holding its shape, but when you bend it too hard, it breaks. It has less impact resistance than a softer plastic that just bends when you bend it harder. If you consider the property of toughness to be the plastic’s ability to bend without breaking, the softer plastic will be tougher. The harder plastic will have better abrasion resistance, but still not be as tough if toughness is defined this way. Add stiffness and wear resistance, and it’s challenging not to become more brittle and less impact resistant.
That said, I can understand how a plastic construction designed to come closer to the stiffness of composites, with lightweight, and better abrasion resistance than gelcoat, might fall a little short in impact resistance. I would guess that’s why a company would steer folks away from that style of kayak for boney rivers, and I would probably just take their word for it.

New Corelite X 3-layer poly Scorpio series by P&H. The new material has reduced the weight significantly (2016 model @63lbs, 2017 Corelite X at 56lbs for the LV version). $2100

There are 3 sizes but I didn’t see any height/weight specs in the OP.

See you on the water,
Marshall
The Connection, Inc.
Hyde Park, NY
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dc9mm is exactly correct: “What happened was the [thermoformed] boat got on top of a rock that was mostly submerged, when that happened it put a lot of force on one area and the boats split open.” This happened to me with a thermoformed kayak, in fact it wasn’t even a rock, it was a submerged tree stump at low speed. The incident was my fault for various reasons (cold water and other things), but it would never have happened with a rotomolded kayak.

It’s really a myth that Eddylines are “indestructible.” There is nothing magical about the bottom material of an Eddyline kayak. In fact if you turn one over and press on the bottom you will be rather surprised at how thin and flexible the material feels, compared to the very solid deck.

That Delta video is meaningless. Run that kayak up against a sharp rock in the winter and you’ll find out why. User reports vary from “I dropped my thermoformed kayak off a building and it survived” to what dc9mm witnessed.

Ohenry, you write that thermoformed is “tough enough to withstand some abuse (e.g. accidently paddling over rocks in shallow rivers).” That’s not very realistic if you’re talking about white water. You might be lucky 9 times out of 10 but I wouldn’t count it.

Still, I love thermoformed plastic and won’t paddle anything else due to the light weight and beauty of the material. But I do so being well aware of the big fault of thermoformed plastic: cracking on impact, especially in cold water or when dropped from a car onto the pavement in the winter. This is why NO thermoformed manufacturer recommends their kayaks for white water.

But these make great lake and camping kayaks as long as you treat them with due care. Maybe they could be compared to wooden kayaks—loved by many and certainly used on the sea, but with an understanding of the limitations of the material. In the field you can repair a clean crack in thermoformed plastic, whereas the wooden kayak might be shattered beyond repair.

This discussion points to why some people have more than one kayak, for different needs. Thermoformed kayaks definitely have their place. Your needs are unclear. 17’ river kayak? Why? What kind of river are you talking about?