Re: [Paddlewise] Granta Folding boats & Need kayak identification

----- Original Message -----
From: "Matt Broze" <mkayaks_at_oz.net>

> Ralph_at_PouchBoats.com wrote:
> >>>>In fact paddling on the whole only survived because of the emergence
of
> cheaper plastic kayaks. This in turn has allowed a modern renaissance of
> folding boats (which the other Ralph has been documenting for the last
> decade
> of its growth on this continent).<<<<
>
> Is this the general consensus out there?
> I've been around this business since before "cheaper plastic" sea kayaks
> (and before sea kayak retail stores existed outside the NW corner of the
> US--and SW corner of Canada) and sea kayaking (much less paddling) never
> seemed in danger of not surviving to me and in fact was rapidly gaining in
> popularity even before plastic came on the scene.

I think the word "survive" spoken by the other Ralph should have been
"thrive."  I mean "thrive" in the sense of really taking off.  The
polyethylene kayaks reduced prices sufficiently that people who were (and
are) curious about sea kayaking are willing to take a chance in buying one.
It isn't too much of a stretch of the pocketbook for someone to plunk down
$800 for a basic polyethylene kayak while it does take them to nosebleed
levels if they have to shell out $2,000 and more for a fiberglass kayak.

This still holds today.  Low price polyethylene kayaks draw people in and
help companies too.  I recall about 8 years ago talking with an owner of a
pretty savvy kayak manufacturing company.  His company had just started
producing polyethylene boats.  I knew from previous conversations with him
that he had great pride in the fiberglass and other composite materials
boats his company made.  I asked him why he had started producing plastic
after all these years and some derisive early comments about plastic by him.
He said, "Ralph, making plastic boats is the next best thing to printing
money."  The margins are huge and the room for discounting, sales pricing,
etc. is vast.  All, of course, after the initial huge capital expenditure fo
r the plastic boat making machines and molds.

If it had not been for plastic, I believe growth would have been limited.
The sea kayaking industry would have grown but not like it did (and does).
Fiberglass boats can only be made at a certain rate what with hand layups,
curing times, finishing work etc.  Plastic is quicker and less hand, and
most importantly, less skill intensive.  You know that there are good
fiberglass craftsmen and there are less than good ones.  In plastic, that
skill level imperative plays a less of a part.

Let us take ourselves back to the late 1980s and pretend for a moment that
plastic sea kayaks, starting with the Lee Moyers designed Aquaterra Chinook
around 1984, had not come along.  Let's say suddenly because of Sea Kayaker
magazine and good columns from the likes of Matt Broze, Lee Moyers, et al a
whole lot of people are inticed into wanting to buy boats.  I doubt that any
wildly increased demand could have been kept up with were the only offerings
longer to make and more expensive to produce fiberglass boats.  Large
demand, more limited supply would have driven up prices (a dampener on
demand for many many inquisitive wannabe buyers) and/or wound up producing
less than perfect fiberglass ones, i.e. shoddier workmanship.

> Feathercraft never seemed to be doing anything but expanding as long as I
> can remember them (since about 1982).

Actually, for the longest time in the 1980s, Feathercraft was just hanging
on by its fingernails.  It got some nasty competitive statements coming out
of the East that cast doubt on its products.  It went through some fits and
starts in choices of hull material and some nasty stuff said about them from
a major folding kayak dealer in the West.  It was only real persistence and
great designs that saw the company finally through.

I wonder if Folbot would give us a
> sales history from well before 1984 to as recently as they would be
willing
> to. I think I recall Folbot ads in Canoe magazine since the mid 70's and
in
> magazines like Popular Mechanics since the 50's.

Both Folbot and Klepper did wonderfully well in the 1950s-1970s.  Remember
that in some ways, Klepper was the only show in town in the 1950s-1970s with
Folbot benefiting from lower price offerings alternatives to it.   But then
hard times hit.  Klepper closed its factory doors for a few years and Folbot
went through a period of offering much too many models, getting a bad
reputation on quality (really undeserved), and the death of the founder and
owner Jack Kissner.  Also the rise of rigid kayaks starting in the late
1970s and then plastic in the mid 1980s with their image of
indestructibility affected folding kayak sales.

Anyway, that is my take.

ralph diaz
--
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Ralph Diaz . . . Folding Kayaker newsletter
PO Box 0754, New York, NY 10024
Tel: 212-724-5069; E-mail: rdiaz_at_ix.netcom.com
"Where's your sea kayak?"----"It's in the bag."
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