What is the durability of composite kayaks?

Question

next season im looking to invest in a all out touring kayak to do a couple of long trips and use at the massive local state lake for fitness use. the question is: on the long trips it will be on the great and/or little miami river which can in certain parts get low enough that you can really plow hard into large rocks that are just below the surface and impossible to see and manuever around. how damaging are these to the composite fiberglass, kevlar, and hybrid hulls? the manufacturers advertise durability, but im not so sure. im looking at the current designs nomad gts and solstice gts. thank you for any help you can give me.

Answer 1

These are a tough as any you'll find out there...especially the kevlar.

Answer 2

Kevlar is tough but fiberglass is way easier to patch or resurface if you do sustain a bad gash (the only solvent for kevlar is fuming sulphuric acid -- I know because I used to have to make solutions of it in a polymer chemistry lab.)

Answer 3

I love rock gardening (surfing waves through narrow rock channels). So, when I picked out my boat, I wanted to make sure that it was going to be sturdy. I ended up with a Kevlar Slipstream. It fit great and was light, but the Kevlar hull was also an advantage. I asked everyone I know who paddles and heard every nightmare story, and it seems that the Kevlar and glass boats are basically comparable. In general, the heavier hulls hold up better, so things like the Tempest Pro are more sturdy than other glass boats.

Just FYI, my husband hit a rock hard enough to jar him out of the boat and out of his neoprene skirt. His boat is glass and didn't hole (although we do need to do some gel coat work this weekend...)

Also - don't worry too much about fuming sulfuric acid... although it will dissolve Kevlar, you don't need it to fix a hole. The Kevlar fabric is impregnated with a resin and then molded to make your boat. If you need to fix a hole, you can buy a kit with fabric, resin, and a catalyst. You don't need to dissolve the Kevlar, just mix the resin, saturate the fabric, and patch the hole (not quite that easy, but almost).

Have fun out there.