I just read the story on this and felt the need to spout off. So starting in June 09 all of their composite boats will be factory-made in China.

This is very wrong for a number of reasons--all of them important. I will avoid these specific brands from this point forward. Listen, does anyone out there really think that the Chinese guy or his family understands anything about kayaks, something completely outside his cultural experience? *It's similar to my attempting to cook a traditional Chinese dinner (me being an American with an English/Italian American upbringing and culture). I love to cook and I cook Italian food especially well. But when I make Chinese it comes out tasting OK---but it doesn't taste Chinese. And that this is a 'family' business--- that was an interesting plug Confluence evidently believes will have us to all feeling warm and fuzzy inside since most will not consider that they will get paid dirt wages and the kids will work in the factory instead of going to school where some academics and enlightenment would serve them and the entire globe well as opposed to continuing to fuel a fascist communist dictatorship with no benefit to themselves as people.

Quality will suffer. The environment will suffer (since China's manufacturing remains in the late 19th century), a human rights-violating government gets stronger, westerners stop building things (and stop learning how to after a very short time), and the entire kayaking industry cheapens itself. Fortunately for now there are still some great North American (and UK) kayak manufacturers. They've always been my favorites anyway. And though I am not rich I will GLADLY pay extra for their brands.

To say that because they are Chinese and don't paddle will lead to poorer quality boats is incorrect. In this particular case, R&D and testing will still be done by the Confluence Team and the build specs will be sent to the manufacture for assembly. One doesn’t need to be a paddler to build good boats. They just need to be good at their trade.

I believe in this case the glass/Kevlar layup quality of the boats will actually increase as the manufacturing plant currently builds high end racing shells where the performance standards are light years ahead of the standards for recreational sea kayaks and canoes.

You touched on what I believe one of the real issues are and that is the overall environmental impact to the environment of the decision. Looking at it objectively, the manufacturing impact will likely remain relatively similar. Boats need to be made somewhere and if they are made here or there, they still need to be made. I can’t comment specifically on the factories environmental standards for waste disposal but to say that they will be bad just because they are in China so the standards will be less is incorrect as there are plenty of manufacturing plants here in North America that are very bad as well.

I believe the true major difference will be the huge impact of lugging these boats around the world. Sea Kayak are big and difficult to store and shipping them to Europe and North America will now be a considerable cost environmentally that wasn’t there before.

It’s a real shame but fundamentally this issue comes down to costs and how much people are willing to pay for a boat. The advance in technology for plastic and theromoulded boats, has created a large price gap and less and less people are willing to buy a high end Kevlar boat when they can get an almost as good thermomoulded one for ½ the price. This drop in sales has made the boats more expensive to make and thus a huge drip in margins. To increase profitability, they are forced to manufacture in cheaper markets.

It will be interesting to see (in a year or two) if they are still happy with the adjustment. I know Epic Kayaks isn’t as they have had huge growing pains in transferring their manufacturing offshore.

Cheers,

David J.

Oh, that actually hits home for me. The Confluence plant that took over Perception is here in my home town. That's just another 75 or so people out of a job now. I used to work at Perception back in 1996, my have times changed. Mr. Bill Masters would have never stood for something like this back then, but then again. He said he would never let his plant go either. I do miss working there at times though.

I bet.

And akasharkbow seems like a nice enough guy and I wish him nothing ill. But to say that quality will not suffer and that a kayak built by child/slave labor in a place a thousand miles away with no implementation of craftsmanship--true craftsmanship--in boat building, well, I felt I didn't need to reply. You either get it or you don't and that thought process is just worlds apart from mine.

If you've ever watched a video of how a kayak is made, all that they really seem to do is pour the plastic powder into the mold, spread it out, and put it in the oven. Once it's done, they just cut out the cockpit, install the outfitting, and put on the grab handles/security bars. They may even end up sending the shells back here to get the more detailed work finished. Keep in mind that this is only for the composites at the moment, which for any WW paddlers, it will only affect you if you get the Project 54cx, but I don't see the reason behind this, since they are only making 50 models.

There is a lot of time put into building a quality boat. The ovens have to stay a certain temp the entire time, the plastic has to be spread properly, and properly tested for thickness. Removing the boat from the mold can even be a task sometimes. The builders and molders here take pride in there work, and work there for years. That type of dedication will be lost. I also hate to see more US jobs shipped overseas and the owners of the company complaining about the economy. We really need some sort of outrageous tax on companies that outsource outside the country. The US is shipping all of it's blue collar jobs out of the country, and now that the economy is suffering the first thing they decide to cut back on is education and higher education. Which are both required for higher end jobs. None of this makes any since to me, and I guess it isn't my position to make since of it.

Well I think that the hype that all should be made in China at low prices (which don't show in the retailprices) is a bad one. Only thing that counts is sharehoulders and profit and 'opening up markeds'. Why should those boats be made in China? We keep telling ourselves because it's cheap. Yep, exploiting other people for our greed.....
Oh and I'm not a leftist by the way. I buy stuff from India and china as well. We export fish from Norway to China to get them processed cheap and then pay the same price at the counter as before...... Strangeley in communist china it's quite ok to let people work 80 hour weeks for 'our' profitt.

Video Showing How A Kayak Is Made

qall the confluence boat ?
does it include
dagger nomad and dagger playboat ?
wave sport project (plastic), wave sport habitat