How are your canoes constructed?
Fiberglass
The Hummingbird Canoe Company brand of canoes are light weight composite crafts made from S-Glass, E-Glass, Kevlar® or Carbon Kevlar®. Composite canoe construction involves combining different woven materials with resin in a mold. The benefits of composites are they result in lighter canoes with excellent durability. They also offer superior glide and much better long-term repairability.
All our canoes use a four-layer composite layup laying fabric end to end in the canoe in a continuous sheet with additional reinforcement for the bottom and at key wear points. The layup comprises an outer lay of S-Glass for impact and wear resistant and multi inner layers of carbon, Kevlar, innegra, basalt and hybrid carbon/Kevlar fabrics. Our fiberglass canoes use polyester resin, and our hybrid kevlar/carbon canoes use epoxy resin. Some of our canoes use woven coloured fabrics to give the stripped, or textured hybrid, red/black or orange/black appearance.
Fiberglass material has been around for many years, and is a well proven material in terms of durability and strength. Fiberglass canoes are the most economical and affordable options and give many years of service. Fiberglass canoes are great for recreational use and are a good choice for budget-minded individuals. Hybrid materials using carbon and kevlar fabrics combined with epoxy resin provide superior strength and durability characteristics. Ultra light weight and heavier whitewater expedition layups are possible depending on the model and the individual order.
Kevlar Carbon Hybrid fabrics
Like most things there have been many advances with composite materials and engineering and as a result we provide options to build canoes out of hybrid Kevlar® and Carbon Kevlar® composites.
Kevlar® canoes are the lightest boats we make and are intended for flatwater tripping. Built by infusing Kevlar cloth with our high impact resistant epoxy resin these canoes have great strength to weight characteristics. While they are ideal for wilderness trips involving lots of long portages, it is also wonderful just to have a lightweight canoe to put on and off the car. All Kevlar canoes use S-Glass on the outer surface for impact and abrasion resistance.
Our expedition canoes use kevlar and carbon fibre hybrid material supplemented with basalt or innegra cloth. Not only is the look of carbon fiber cloth very appealing but the carbon fibers add stiffness to the hull to increase paddling efficiency. Adding an inner layer of Innegra with high impact resistant epoxy resin makes a very rugged canoe.
While the flexibility of Kevlar® provides an advantage for certain areas of the hull, there are also areas where the flexibility will create disadvantages and can cause issues with performance, safety, and strength. Proper architecture and material support in these areas of the hull is critical to ensure the canoe provides the right amount of rigidity and the hull maintains its shape when loaded in the water. Add to this the issue of overall weight. All things being equal, simple physics dictates that the lighter the weight, the less the amount of material in the hull and in-turn lower the potential strength of the hull. While adding additional material will certainly add to the overall potential strength, it will also take away from the main benefit of using a light weight material such as Kevlar® in the first place. When it comes to light weight composite canoes, most of the differences are typically not overly apparent from the exterior. The overall structural design, architecture, core materials, and engineering play a far more critical role and like most things, the details make the biggest difference in the end.
What materials are used for which type of paddling?
Recreational canoes are generally made of fiberglass cloths using polyester resin.
Performance recreational canoes usually have higher end fabrics, are lighter weight and use epoxy resin.
Whitewater and expedition tripping canoes are generally made of higher end fabrics with additional reinforcement at key wear spots. These canoes can be 20% heavier than performance recreational canoes to improve toughness and durability for demanding white water paddling and tripping.