Custom Kayak Manufacturer?

Discussion in 'Boat Design' started by goyak, Jul 23, 2020.

  1. philSweet
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    philSweet Senior Member

    On the other hand, there are a couple million sqft of boat building facilities available, and about 10,000 U.S. workers in recreational boating that are out of work right now.
     
  2. upchurchmr
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    upchurchmr Senior Member

    And what makes you think they will all of a sudden start work, with infections and deaths rising?
     
  3. gonzo
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    gonzo Senior Member

    However, that is still not a definition or explanation of what you mean by those terms. Also, the claim that customers get headaches&buyer's remorse has no reference to any survey or study. If you want a proper market research and design/prototyping plan, you have to get away from the sales hype and start writing concrete characteristics of the design.
     
  4. TANSL
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    TANSL Senior Member

    Maybe @goyak knows exactly what he wants and does not want or cannot give more details in public in the forum. He has been told repeatedly to describe his boat and, I am sure he has understood it, so insisting on that subject, perhaps, does nothing to progress in this thread. I do not know if explaining the meaning of standard phrases here, written in a general sense, can contribute anything positive in this phase of the discussion, or perhaps it does.
    @gonzo, maybe, if you write him a pm showing him your portfolio of designs, he can give you more information privately so that you can pass him an offer or you can provide novel solutions to his design.
     
  5. upchurchmr
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    upchurchmr Senior Member

    The eternal desire to ask questions but give no details so that a "masterpiece" is kept secret is being played out again.

    Time to give up.
     
  6. Squidly-Diddly
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    Squidly-Diddly Senior Member

    Sounds like these designs were "trying too hard", which could be mitigated by Pentagon tier engineering but at Pentagon price points. Instead of chasing "quality", engineer the need for extreme quality out of the system.

    "water leaking into the engine", "parts wore down and broke very quickly" sounds like an ICE with a through shaft below the water line, and some new fangled way of transfering mechanical power around corners, respectively.

    One of my back-burner projects is to replace standard, durable, proven SOT kayak flip-up rudder with the smallest good quality electric trolling motor I can find, butchered to separate the motor and lowest part of pipe and throttle control, powered by two smallish 12v auto/marine batts forward and aft to balance load. The batts would sit on tough water proof fabric bags which themselves are sealed around the hatch openings with bungee cord, and the batts are held snug to bottom with more bungee cords across the opening and ridge-foam spacer blocks. They sell offset motor mounts but the offset triggers my autism. Idea would be that steering would still be hand's free, the two small auto batts would increase stability, and the batts could be 86-ed in an emergency while maintaining SOT flotation, and nothing is problematic except for IMO manageable weight/stress increase on rudder mounting. I'd glue in a bulk-head between the rudder-mount and rear hatch in case extra stress on mount cracks the hull. Having two batts of equal size could tell you you've used 1/2 your "fuel" depending on how they are wired.
    Trident 15 would be my first choice due to large both front and rear hatches.
     
  7. IronPrice
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    IronPrice Senior Member

    GoYak, I used to be a keen kayak fisherman (lakes, inshore and offshore), until I had to stop due to medication affecting sense of balance. If you want thoughts/suggestions, please send me PM, I'd be happy to help.
     
  8. Barry
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    Barry Senior Member





    Attached are 3 videos showing the roto-molding process of world known kayak manufacturers.

    You suggest that existing companies in the market are "not the best product". This is a dangerous assumption from someone who has not gone down the manufacturing process. What you should notice is the number of employees, the
    magnitude of the size of the equipment which means big $$$$, notice the molds one for each model. I would expect that the equipment shown, the roto machine and the oven and cooling chambers could easily run to $1,000,000 US
    though I have never purchased equipment within this category but other large manufacturing equipment. Employees, maybe 10 or more in the manufacturing department, rental of a building perhaps in the 8,000 sq foot range, an administration staff, a marketing staff etc etc

    These are large companies, who purchase their consumables, the poly, by the truckload as well as fasteners and bolt-ons by the thousands. How can you compete? How will you be able to bridge the costs between building the first unit and
    getting enough sold to create enough sales to begin to even cover overhead? The reality is that you need a ton of money to enter into a mature supply chain UNLESS you have some specific improvement on the hull that will increase say
    the speed of the hull, (and not everyone is looking for more speed) by double digit values. ie more than 10%

    The existing companies have been there and done that, and their quality is represented in the price. Ie high end, specific market racing kayaks are a small nich market. Narrow, unstable, but fast. The recreational market, some speed with
    stability for inexperienced paddlers a priority, white water, highly rockered hull shapes offer maneuverability but not speed or stability.

    So where will you fit in. Higher quality than the big players at a lower price??? Not likely. A better design- marginally maybe.Enough innovation or advantage to grab a significant market share, not realistic.

    We own 2 12 foot poly Wilderness kayaks, perfect for bumping down rock strewn rivers. $500 bucks each, with paddles and skirts. Stability, width, medium speed. We have 2 17 foot composite Deltas, rudders, stability, med plus speed, lake/ocean $2,500 each


    So you want to create a Delta higher end quality kayak for Wilderness prices. To your question "Can I do better or is this the economic reality?" No you cannot probably do better and it is the economic reality

    For small production runs, small physical plant, (building, and equipment) you could consider a fibreglass/composite, hand laid product and perhaps focus on lightweight, stable, medium speed kayaks. At least if you cannot
    develop a niche market, you will have not lost your shirt

    One more point
    The price point (and quality) is generally driven by the level of competition for similar product. ie the base price of say a pickup truck is close between manufacturers because
    the costs will be close as well. Ie a base Chev pickup with the same options as say a Ford base pickup cannot vary by much or a much cheaper priced unit will win out assuming the same performance etc. The same is seen in the Kayak line with
    Pelican, Wilderness and others occupying pricing within $50 bucks on the cheaper entry level kayaks.[/COLOR][/URL]
     
    Last edited: Aug 4, 2020

  9. SamSam
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    SamSam Senior Member

    This came up in the random gallery posts that run along at the bottom of the page....

    [​IMG]
    nukisen: Sheetmetalcanoe
    Posted by: nukisen - website: http://janne.mammamita.se

    nukisen, Jul 25, 2015



    [​IMG]
     
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