I'm looking at canoes made in the UK from a material called Corelite.
I'm having trouble finding information on the material except that it
is some kind of foam sandwiched between an inner and outer skin of
some kind of plastic. Dealers are calling it 'the new hull material'
etc. I'm wondering if it's a good material for canoe hulls. Obviously
the dealers will be quick to defend it if they are selling the
product, but does any end-user have any comments on its
durability/strength/practicality, etc?

TIA,

Al D

I tried to find some info because I've never heard of the stuff. All the
sites Google pulled up were in the UK, and buying a plastic canoe from a
dealer in the UK if you live in the US can't be clever. Nothing about
Brits, but they're 3K miles from here and you can't even make it a road
trip. The Brighton Canoes price seems to be about the same as the
typical ABS canoe in the US.

There are other foam core plastics produced right here in the USofA (see
Old Town Discovery series) and they seem to have the same
characteristics: durable, not very expensive, on the heavy side.
Corelite seems to be a polyethylene (kayaks are made of high density
polyethelene), which is tough stuff.

Steve

Al D wrote:
I'm looking at canoes made in the UK from a material called Corelite.
I'm having trouble finding information on the material except that it
is some kind of foam sandwiched between an inner and outer skin of
some kind of plastic. Dealers are calling it 'the new hull material'
etc. I'm wondering if it's a good material for canoe hulls. Obviously
the dealers will be quick to defend it if they are selling the
product, but does any end-user have any comments on its
durability/strength/practicality, etc?

TIA,

Al D


--
Steve Cramer
Athens, GA

On Fri, 23 Jun 2006 18:05:17 -0400, Steve Cramer
wrote:

I tried to find some info because I've never heard of the stuff. All the
sites Google pulled up were in the UK, and buying a plastic canoe from a
dealer in the UK if you live in the US can't be clever.

I'm in the UK...

There are other foam core plastics produced right here in the USofA (see
Old Town Discovery series) and they seem to have the same
characteristics: durable, not very expensive, on the heavy side.
Corelite seems to be a polyethylene (kayaks are made of high density
polyethelene), which is tough stuff.

Yes, the outer skin reminded me of polyethelene (rather than ABS,
which I think is harder).

Al D

Al D wrote:
On Fri, 23 Jun 2006 18:05:17 -0400, Steve Cramer
wrote:

I tried to find some info because I've never heard of the stuff. All the
sites Google pulled up were in the UK, and buying a plastic canoe from a
dealer in the UK if you live in the US can't be clever.

I'm in the UK...

Oh, sorry, my mistake. I know this is an international newsgroup and
all, but somewhere in your original posts I got the idea you were in New
York, Long Island maybe. Looking back, I see you once actually said
"I'll be canoeing along the South Coast of England." Duh. I really can
read. Really.

So anyhow, you'll be in the position to tell USAns what this Corelite
stuff is, as soon as you find out, 'cause I don't think there's any of
it over here. Or at least Google doesn't seem to know about it.

Although...and this will show how old I am, Hydra used to sell kayaks
made of a foam core polyethylene back in the 80's and early 90's. They
called it HardHull.

There are other foam core plastics produced right here in the USofA (see
Old Town Discovery series) and they seem to have the same
characteristics: durable, not very expensive, on the heavy side.
Corelite seems to be a polyethylene (kayaks are made of high density
polyethelene), which is tough stuff.

Yes, the outer skin reminded me of polyethelene (rather than ABS,
which I think is harder).

Steve

--
Steve Cramer
Athens, GA

Steve Cramer wrote in news:VzZmg.440$M_7.289
@fe02.lga:

I tried to find some info because I've never heard of the stuff. All the
sites Google pulled up were in the UK, and buying a plastic canoe from a
dealer in the UK if you live in the US can't be clever. Nothing about
Brits, but they're 3K miles from here and you can't even make it a road
trip.

That certainly hasn't seemed to influence the popularity of VCP (or whatever
they're called now), NDK, or P&H kayaks in the U.S.

Personally, I'm always a bit leary of new composite layups touted as the
latest thing since sliced bread since the technology has been proven. Given
that the lifespan of a kayak can easily surpass ten years (my glass VCP
Skerray is 17 years old and still paddles quite nicely) I'd be pretty ****ed
if I bought a new kayak only to find out that the hot new composite layup
delaminates after a couple of years.

Steve Cramer wrote in
:

Al D wrote:
On Fri, 23 Jun 2006 18:05:17 -0400, Steve Cramer
wrote:

I tried to find some info because I've never heard of the stuff. All
the sites Google pulled up were in the UK, and buying a plastic canoe
from a dealer in the UK if you live in the US can't be clever.

I'm in the UK...

Oh, sorry, my mistake. I know this is an international newsgroup and
all, but somewhere in your original posts I got the idea you were in
New York, Long Island maybe. Looking back, I see you once actually said
"I'll be canoeing along the South Coast of England." Duh. I really can
read. Really.

So anyhow, you'll be in the position to tell USAns what this Corelite
stuff is, as soon as you find out, 'cause I don't think there's any of
it over here. Or at least Google doesn't seem to know about it.

Although...and this will show how old I am, Hydra used to sell kayaks
made of a foam core polyethylene back in the 80's and early 90's. They
called it HardHull.


I believe that there were also a few Old Town kayak models that used a
polyethelene foam core layup.

John Fereira wrote:
Steve Cramer wrote in news:VzZmg.440$M_7.289
@fe02.lga:

I tried to find some info because I've never heard of the stuff. All the
sites Google pulled up were in the UK, and buying a plastic canoe from a
dealer in the UK if you live in the US can't be clever. Nothing about
Brits, but they're 3K miles from here and you can't even make it a road
trip.

That certainly hasn't seemed to influence the popularity of VCP (or whatever
they're called now), NDK, or P&H kayaks in the U.S.

Yeah, but we buy them from a US dealer, not Brighton Canoe. All of the
sites talking about Corelight seem to be retailers. Not that you
couldn't buy an 80# canoe from Brighton Canoe, I just think it wouldn't
be a great idea.

I own one car built in Germany and another built in Japan, but I didn't
buy them from a German or Japanese retail dealer, I bought them from the
dealer across town.

Steve

--
Steve Cramer
Athens, GA

On Sat, 24 Jun 2006 19:13:12 GMT, John Fereira
wrote:

Steve Cramer wrote in news:VzZmg.440$M_7.289
:

I tried to find some info because I've never heard of the stuff. All the
sites Google pulled up were in the UK, and buying a plastic canoe from a
dealer in the UK if you live in the US can't be clever. Nothing about
Brits, but they're 3K miles from here and you can't even make it a road
trip.

That certainly hasn't seemed to influence the popularity of VCP (or whatever
they're called now), NDK, or P&H kayaks in the U.S.

Personally, I'm always a bit leary of new composite layups touted as the
latest thing since sliced bread since the technology has been proven. Given
that the lifespan of a kayak can easily surpass ten years (my glass VCP
Skerray is 17 years old and still paddles quite nicely) I'd be pretty ****ed
if I bought a new kayak only to find out that the hot new composite layup
delaminates after a couple of years.

Thanks for the input. The danger of delaminating hadn't occurred to
me. What I am mostly concerned about is that the outer skin of plastic
is quite thin, I'm told... (thinner than on a canoe made of solid
plastic) - so I am worried about that outer skin wearing through,
after beaching the canoe enough times on shingle. That polyethelene
plastic (if that's what it is) seems very prone to deep scratching.

I'm also concerned about the inner core of foam being crushable, say,
when a heavy person steps into the canoe while it's on dry land.

But it's a relief to hear that such laminates have been in use in the
US for years. That suggests to me they must be suitable and reliable.

Al D

On Fri, 23 Jun 2006 21:06:41 -0400, Steve Cramer
wrote:

Although...and this will show how old I am, Hydra used to sell kayaks
made of a foam core polyethylene back in the 80's and early 90's. They
called it HardHull.

Thanks for the info. I recall hearing about canoes (not sure of the
country of manufacture) made of a material called Royalex, which also
sounded like what we are talking about.

It's the thickness of the outer skin that concerns me more than
anything. (How much underside scratching it will take, etc.)

Al D

On Fri, 23 Jun 2006 18:05:17 -0400, Steve Cramer
wrote:

Corelite seems to be a polyethylene (kayaks are made of high density
polyethelene), which is tough stuff.

Tough in some respects, for sure. However, my impression is that it is
softer than, say, ABS, and therefore more prone to deep scratching.
That's not usually a problem if the hull is thick enough. But I
suspect that the thickness of the outer skin of this Corelite is
probably quite thin. One of the main selling-points of the material is
that hulls made of it are lighter than hulls with similar rigidity
made of solid plastic. I assume they can only achieve increased
lightness by using less plastic.

Al D