"appeal to the masses"
I wonder what we are talking about as far as masses. How many Aquanauts does Valley sell? How many Explorers does NDK sell?
Nigel Dennis in a BBC interview about a year ago noted that they ship about 350 boats a year to this side of the Atlantic. If that number is accurate, which it may or not be, that’s 350 NDK boats for the Western Hemisphere. That includes Romanys, Explorers, Greenlanders, etc… How large is ‘the masses’ for a particular NDK or Valley boat?
Personally, I was surprised at the 350 figure. Though plausible, it is hard for me to imagine NDK managing to complete enough boats to ship 350 across the sea in one year.
The Rapier
to me represents a very cool blending of race boat / surf ski / sea kayak. I love seeing stuff like that as it’s genuinely pushing the limits within , what I regard as, a very conservative market. I think they’ll have fun with it and will sell a few. I doubt it will be a big number boat for them, but I hope I’m wrong. In terms of NDK numbers of about 350 +/- in North America, that can sustain a small company perhaps, but the bigger corps would not like those numbers… 3000 maybe. This is why I think the really radical stuff will come from the small guys, as they can play with smaller volumes, and the commodity stuff for the masses will be owned by the big players who can handle the production. All in all a good balance of resources perhaps?