You know, Ralph Hoehn's brief history solved a curiosity I have had for years. Working in the aerospace industry for years, and also have in big interests in aircraft design and history, I always thought it was kind of odd that a company like Grumman would make canoes and light fishing boats. They seem to me to be totally different technology and market categories than their main business which was making some of the most advanced combat aircraft in the world as far back as WW 2, super advanced for their times the A-6 Intruder and the F-14 Tomcat just is worlds apart from canoes. And personally I saw nothing particularly innovative about their hull designs in terms of hull performance. But Ralph's mention of the post war boom of manufacturing inexpensive water craft made the connection for me. Like all of the giant manufacturing firms after the war, they had to find some other market or simply close down, which many of them did. What better way to make use of all that surplus aluminum and expensive tooling and factories that the government had already paid for than make consumer products? I know two of my previous employers Northrop and Boeing had tried making commercial ships and rail cars in their factories after the war (both were financial failures, I have read, I am not old enough to know first hand). So likely it was Grumman that used the tooling and cheap surplus aluminum to make canoes and light fishing boats. I would presume they were profitable since they have retained that market for many years. It is difficult to imagine tooling up to build aluminum canoes in a relatively small market and making it profitable unless much of the factory costs and materials were basically free or a fraction of their original costs. It would also put what I imagine was an innovative new way to make a canoe on the market fairly inexpensively, opening new markets for all paddle and motor powered water sports. I do not remember hearing or reading about aluminum canoes prior to WW 2, perhaps others who know more can comment. It also seem to me that the first wide spread us of fiberglass for both boats hull and other consumer products also started about the post war period as well. And if you takes Ralph's comments about plastic hulls referring to fiberglass, not roto-molding, than his statement would be accurate. After all epoxy and polyester are plastics. And I can not think of when the first fiberglass sea kayaks were built, but I'm sure it was after WW2 as well. Perhaps Matt or Cam would know the answer to that. Were there any commercial sea kayak manufactures prior to 1960? If so, prior to WW2? [except the folders of course] And what were they making them out of. ISTM that all of the ones I have seen prior to about 1970 were homemade skin on frame, or fabric folders. If not than I would say it was the post WW2 canoe and light boat makers that made the current boom in sea kayaking possible. Does either Ralph or Matt Boze or anyone else know of any factory kayaks besides folders prior to 1960? Were there any fiberglass sea kayaks made before 1960 or WW2? It would confirm that there was no viable business in sea kayaks prior to the current interest. Peter *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - Any opinions or suggestions expressed here are solely those of the writer(s). You must assume the entire responsibility for reliance upon them. All postings copyright the author. Submissions: PaddleWise_at_PaddleWise.net Subscriptions: PaddleWise-request_at_PaddleWise.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************
At 02:43 PM 2/13/01 -0800, Peter A. Chopelas wrote: > >But Ralph's mention of the post war boom of manufacturing inexpensive water >craft made the connection for me. Like all of the giant manufacturing >firms after the war, they had to find some other market or simply close >down, which many of them did. What better way to make use of all that >surplus aluminum and expensive tooling and factories that the government >had already paid for than make consumer products? >(snip) > >So likely it was Grumman that used the tooling and cheap surplus aluminum >to make canoes and light fishing boats. I would presume they were >profitable since they have retained that market for many years. That's a fair read on what happened. I'm sure that keeping skilled employees available must also have been part of the mix. Also, just after WWII, everyone thought that general aviation and small planes were going to boom. They tried, and a lot went bust there, too. Trying to find new civilian, non-aerospace markets is what sent Al Meyers to building aluminum canoes and fishing boats. Today Meyers (which now owns Michicraft) is the largest builder of aluminum canoes and one of the largest if not the largest builder of aluminum fishing boats. But there were some manufacturers there that did not derive from WWII aviation companies. I don't know about Ozark, but Michicraft started as a canoe company, but well after WWII when the aluminum canoe was booming (pun not intended). >would also put what I imagine was an innovative new way to make a canoe on >the market fairly inexpensively, opening new markets for all paddle and >motor powered water sports. I do not remember hearing or reading about >aluminum canoes prior to WW 2, perhaps others who know more can comment. It would be interesting to know who came up with the first aluminum canoe, but I'll bet it was after WWII in the "seeking new markets" scenario. There were some missteps. I have a 1948 Aerocraft that I think is built from the highly bendable 2024 aluminum, rather than the 6061-T6 which later became standard. The thing has a million dents and is not museum ready. >It also seem to me that the first wide spread us of fiberglass for both >boats hull and other consumer products also started about the post war >period as well. And if you takes Ralph's comments about plastic hulls Fiberglass came along a little later, about the early to mid 1950s. We had one of the pioneers of the technique living in this town until he died recently, and I could have asked him just when it did get going. At this point, we're talking runabouts, no canoes or kayaks. The early glass canoes were awful. In terms of canoes, anyway, aluminum probably beat everybody by 10 to 1 in sales as late as the 1970s. Today, it's probably less than 5% of the canoe market. -- Wes *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - Any opinions or suggestions expressed here are solely those of the writer(s). You must assume the entire responsibility for reliance upon them. All postings copyright the author. Submissions: PaddleWise_at_PaddleWise.net Subscriptions: PaddleWise-request_at_PaddleWise.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************
"Peter A. Chopelas" wrote: > > [snip] I do not remember hearing or reading about > aluminum canoes prior to WW 2, perhaps others who know more can comment. There wasn't anything made of decent aluminum that was at all cheap prior to WW II. High-quality aluminum for warplanes generated a market for spinoffs at the war's end. And, the technology to produce good aluminum was not common before WW II. Turns out that some of the first high-quality aircraft aluminum came off potlines fifty miles upriver from me -- used for Boeing bombers. -- Dave Kruger Astoria, OR *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - Any opinions or suggestions expressed here are solely those of the writer(s). You must assume the entire responsibility for reliance upon them. All postings copyright the author. Submissions: PaddleWise_at_PaddleWise.net Subscriptions: PaddleWise-request_at_PaddleWise.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************
Derek Hutchinson says his 1967 North Sea Tourer was the first ocean kayak made entirely from fiberglass and that it was inspired by a picture of a Mackenzie Delta kayak. I believe Derek has also claimed to be the originator of hatches and bulkheads on kayaks too. Somebody told me they heard the North Sea Tourer's hull was based on the Wessex Sea Rapier's which dates back to 1960 (built by J.L. GMach--who incidently also claims to have built the first GRP (glass reinforced plastic) production "canoe" back in 1958. Other information says the Sea Rapier was actually a design of a Norwegian named Hoell who in 1942 called it "Seaway". Sometime before 1965 the same design was named "Norseman" (which had optional bulkheads, hatches & rudder) and was built by Wessex owner(?) J.L. GMach. Werner Furrer Sr. (Werner Paddles founder) made a fiberglass kayak he called an "Eskimo" back in 1964 (but didn't go into production with it)(It had a steep V-bottom, hard chines, fine low ends, and lots of rake. He told me its design was influenced by his friend John Heath's study of W. Greenland kayaks (but Werner says he added a slight "V" on the fore and aft decks). I paddled one in 1982 and again in 1996. The Tyee I (14'long by 2" wide) built by Linc Hales and designed by Wolf Bauer was one of, if not earliest glass sea kayak produced in N.A. (if not the world) and may also be the first fiberglass kayak ever to have a hatch and a bulkhead, the hatch was on the rear deck. The Tyee I featured long bilge keels of about 3/4" cross section and a huge cockpit (of surprisingly modern rim configuration). I once managed to Eskimo roll one even though I was sitting on a boat cushion for the seat, had no side support for my hips and could barely reach the deck with my knees. I thought it handled wind and waves a lot better than many modern kayaks and once on a day trip a couple of women switched between it and a longer more modern 17' kayak and whoever paddled it left the 17' kayak's paddler behind. An old timer at a WKC meeting told me the idea to make a kayak out of fiberglass came from a fiberglass boat (canoe or kayak) they had seen on a river kayak trip to California. The Tyee I's date of first completion has not yet been exactly determined (Feb. 92 Sea Kayaker p13 says Wolf designed it in the mid 60's)(after 1962 says Wolf in a WA Kayak Club video on the clubs history, he also says then that it was modeled on the best of the folding kayaks)(An April 2000 obituary for the builder in the WKC bulletin says the Tyee I was first built at the end of the 50's)(Wolf told me at the 12/8/2000 WKC meeting that it was first built in 1961). Wolf is in his 90's now and a few years ago was still making a very entertaining slide presentation to the WKC on shoreline erosion and man's misguided and often futile attempts to try to control it. Wolf founded the Washington Foldboat Club (which became the WA Kayak Club) back in 1949 (if my memory serves me). One of that clubs early members was my uncle. Back in 1934 Wolf ski raced in the first Silver Skis race down from 10,000 to less than 5,000 feet elevation on Mt. Rainier. To me this is another coincidence since my dad won that race in 1942 and the uncle who became a WA Foldboat Club member also raced in those ski races and so probably knew Wolf from their skiing connections before he started kayaking. I suspect it was Wolf who influenced him to buy the Klepper he had for so many years both here and in Alaska. Matt Broze http://www.marinerkayaks.com *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - Any opinions or suggestions expressed here are solely those of the writer(s). You must assume the entire responsibility for reliance upon them. All postings copyright the author. Submissions: PaddleWise_at_PaddleWise.net Subscriptions: PaddleWise-request_at_PaddleWise.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************
I found some even earlier fiberglass sea kayaks. The Gulf Islander, designed by Ted Houk (and often homebuilt by early WKC members from Ted's molds), was first built in 1959. It had a round bottom, a 1 1/4" wide flange seam, high cockpit rim much like a sprint kayak but more rounded. The width of the hull without the flange was about 23". The designers sons -- told me (12/8/2000) that it came after the cold molded Amigo (1958) and two other cold molded wood prototypes Ted made in 1959. Robert Livingston (who created the free kayak design software on our website) paddled one from the San Juans to Johnstone Strait many years ago. Dick Thoms told me that in 1958 he built the first fiberglass kayak ever built in the Seattle area. It was based on the Klepper T-6 and he made only one of them. Matt Broze http://www.marinerkayaks.com *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - Any opinions or suggestions expressed here are solely those of the writer(s). You must assume the entire responsibility for reliance upon them. All postings copyright the author. Submissions: PaddleWise_at_PaddleWise.net Subscriptions: PaddleWise-request_at_PaddleWise.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************
Dan Cook claims that members of the Nordkapp Expedition of 1975 invented bulkheads, hatches, and the built-in bilge pump expressly for the expedition, though this might have been a parallel invention. At the Great Lakes Sea Kayak Symposium a few years ago, he showed several slides of the different hatches they experimented with before they settled on one design. Chuck Holst -----Original Message----- From: Matt Broze [SMTP:mkayaks_at_oz.net] Sent: Thursday, February 15, 2001 3:13 AM To: Paddlewise Subject: Re: [Paddlewise] Modern history of kayaking (was: Folding Boats) Derek Hutchinson says his 1967 North Sea Tourer was the first ocean kayak made entirely from fiberglass and that it was inspired by a picture of a Mackenzie Delta kayak. I believe Derek has also claimed to be the originator of hatches and bulkheads on kayaks too. *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - Any opinions or suggestions expressed here are solely those of the writer(s). You must assume the entire responsibility for reliance upon them. All postings copyright the author. Submissions: PaddleWise_at_PaddleWise.net Subscriptions: PaddleWise-request_at_PaddleWise.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************
Hello Matt, I think Derek had to come some years earlier to be the first with hatches and bulkheads. Artur Tiller made a drawing for a single cruising kayak which featured a bulkhead aft and the corresponding deck hatch. The drawing is dated 1924 and published 1926 together with some other kayaks designed with bulkheads in his book. Gerald -- GUM_at_exmail.de *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - Any opinions or suggestions expressed here are solely those of the writer(s). You must assume the entire responsibility for reliance upon them. All postings copyright the author. Submissions: PaddleWise_at_PaddleWise.net Subscriptions: PaddleWise-request_at_PaddleWise.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************
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