Subject: FW: As a matter of interest Wayne When you phoned me at 2PM today, I told you there was one guy out there (Sander) but it was almost flat. Well let me tell you what.... Brian Charles came up at 4.30 and I joined him... and by 5 PM the waves were ENORMOUS ! In every set there were one or two that were well overhead! Brian broke his paddle bracing on one of them (his Aquabound paddle.) Went in and came back out with his brother's (another Aquabound) and after two waves broke that one too! All these blades break at exactly the same place.... right at the neck where the blade goes into the shaft. Please drill out those shafts you have so I can try to put something together from the scraps for Brian & Michael. BTW .... we have had paddles from Impex, Delepre, Cannon and Aquabound.... and all have broken in short order. The only paddles that have proved their worth (that I have sold) are Werner and Llendal. The Interesting thing is... when I report broken paddles to the manufacturers they ALL come back with the same reply... "Oh? That's funny. We've never had a report of any of our paddles breaking before...." One manufacturer ... Aquabound ... questioned if the paddles weren't breaking because the paddler was 'pushing up off the bottom.' I assured them that was not the case. Then miracle of miracles.... James Ince was in at Bathsheba and his girlfriend was video taping him. He did a roll on a small wave... and there on the video ... you can see him come up... with paddle blade missing! I told this to the Aquabound people, I offered to send them the video by Federal Express if they would reimburse my charges... they said "yes, please send it." Of course you know... I never heard a word from them about the video and never got compensated for the Federal Express charges. I've said all the above to say this.... in all my years of dealing with kayaks, I've NEVER sold a product that I would not stand behind, my feelings first of all being.... 1. it's not ethical and 2. I expect the manufacturer would stand behind me and replace any defective merchandise. In all fairness to Aquabound, they have sent me at no charge, replacement blades which I use to repair their paddles at no charge to the paddle owner. The problem is... they keep on breaking, and breaking, and breaking... like the Energizer bunny. The Delepre people (Mega Kayaks)... I have reported one broken paddle to them and Malcolm has said he'll replace it and any others that break. But the Impex people.... I bought from them a dozen paddles and all of them went on the dump heap in two weeks... they said they would replace them and they never did. We lost well over a thousand dollars on that deal. I can only say the Impex people are quite unethical. One other point: these paddle makers obviously make their paddles for white water use. The kind of pressure on a paddle on a river is apparently nothing like that on an ocean swell when someone gets trashed on a 10' or bigger wave. The ONLY paddles that have proved their worth here are Werner and Llendal. I'm sure there are others that will stand up too. I understand Lightning is quite reliable. Have a nice day! Surfbuff Barbados *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List Submissions: paddlewise_at_lists.intelenet.net Subscriptions: paddlewise-request_at_lists.intelenet.net Website: http://www.gasp-seakayak.net/paddlewise/ ***************************************************************************
But were they all unfeathered? ;-) Matt Broze -----Original Message----- From: SurfBuff <kayaker_at_caribsurf.com> To: 'paddlewise_at_lists.intelenet.net' <paddlewise_at_lists.intelenet.net> Date: Thursday, June 03, 1999 9:05 AM Subject: [Paddlewise] FW: As a matter of interest > > >Subject: FW: As a matter of interest > >Wayne > >When you phoned me at 2PM today, I told you there was one guy out there (Sander) but it was almost flat. > >Well let me tell you what.... Brian Charles came up at 4.30 and I joined him... and by 5 PM the waves were ENORMOUS ! In every set there were one or two that were well overhead! > >Brian broke his paddle bracing on one of them (his Aquabound paddle.) Went in and came back out with his brother's (another Aquabound) and after two waves broke that one too! All these blades break at exactly the same place.... right at the neck where the blade goes into the shaft. > >Please drill out those shafts you have so I can try to put something together from the scraps for Brian & Michael. > > BTW .... we have had paddles from Impex, Delepre, Cannon and Aquabound.... and all have broken in short order. The only paddles that have proved their worth (that I have sold) are Werner and Llendal. > >The Interesting thing is... when I report broken paddles to the manufacturers they ALL come back with the same reply... "Oh? That's funny. We've never had a report of any of our paddles breaking before...." > >One manufacturer ... Aquabound ... questioned if the paddles weren't breaking because the paddler was 'pushing up off the bottom.' I assured them that was not the case. Then miracle of miracles.... James Ince was in at Bathsheba and his girlfriend was video taping him. He did a roll on a small wave... and there on the video ... you can see him come up... with paddle blade missing! > >I told this to the Aquabound people, I offered to send them the video by Federal Express if they would reimburse my charges... they said "yes, please send it." Of course you know... I never heard a word from them about the video and never got compensated for the Federal Express charges. > >I've said all the above to say this.... in all my years of dealing with kayaks, I've NEVER sold a product that I would not stand behind, my feelings first of all being.... 1. it's not ethical and 2. I expect the manufacturer would stand behind me and replace any defective merchandise. > >In all fairness to Aquabound, they have sent me at no charge, replacement blades which I use to repair their paddles at no charge to the paddle owner. The problem is... they keep on breaking, and breaking, and breaking... like the Energizer bunny. > >The Delepre people (Mega Kayaks)... I have reported one broken paddle to them and Malcolm has said he'll replace it and any others that break. > >But the Impex people.... I bought from them a dozen paddles and all of them went on the dump heap in two weeks... they said they would replace them and they never did. We lost well over a thousand dollars on that deal. I can only say the Impex people are quite unethical. > >One other point: these paddle makers obviously make their paddles for white water use. The kind of pressure on a paddle on a river is apparently nothing like that on an ocean swell when someone gets trashed on a 10' or bigger wave. > >The ONLY paddles that have proved their worth here are Werner and Llendal. I'm sure there are others that will stand up too. I understand Lightning is quite reliable. > >Have a nice day! > >Surfbuff >Barbados > > > > > >*************************************************************************** >PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List >Submissions: paddlewise_at_lists.intelenet.net >Subscriptions: paddlewise-request_at_lists.intelenet.net >Website: http://www.gasp-seakayak.net/paddlewise/ >*************************************************************************** *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List Submissions: paddlewise_at_lists.intelenet.net Subscriptions: paddlewise-request_at_lists.intelenet.net Website: http://www.gasp-seakayak.net/paddlewise/ ***************************************************************************
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