Hey folks,

Last night I saw some relatively new Souris River canoes that were using ribs to reinforce the hull. I found this kind of surprising because even my old beater has a diamond foam core floor - and judging from the serial number appears to have been made in 1987.

I thought it was generally accepted that the diamond in the floor was a better system.

Why is Souris River still using ribs?

This was in a modern 45lb Kevlar

thanks

Reason #10 in Souris Rivers 15 reasons our canoes are better.........

http://www.sourisriver.com/sr_advantage.html

10. Flexible Rib System

After years of research and development, Keith Robinson developed our flexible rib system. This allows our canoes to flex when they strike solid objects, while still retaining their hull shape under all but the most extreme conditions. (Don’t you wish your car could do that?) This exceptional feature would not be possible if we didn’t use Epoxy resin. That may be why you won’t find it in any other canoe.

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"What else could I do? I had no trade so I became a peddler" - Lazarus Greenberg 1915

Interesting. Thanks.

Foam core diamonds fracture if they hit a rock head on.. The boats they are used on are flatwater cruisers.
Wenonah uses vinylester resin..
While I detest SR advertising of belittling other brands, the ribs do flex if they hit a rock and may save some damage.
I have boats with both layups. Because our Odyssey had the diamond foam floor when we hit a rock it fractured in over a dozen places. We did patch it with epoxy but still there is now a little flex in it. Maybe not all a bad thing but if the epoxy cracks again the water will seep in.

Better yet is the layups some semi custom builders use.. Extra fabric for reinforcement. You wont find foam of any kind in Hemlock or Colden or Placid BoatWorks canoes.

My older-than-dirt beater canoe is a fifty-year-old ribbed fiberglass Pinetree, always stored out of the sun in a garage or basement. The thin epoxy/fiberglass has remained flexible enough to absorb shocks since there wasn't much UV to weaken the hull... several years ago we hit a submerged stump in the dark heavily loaded. Heavy with a big guy up front and paddling fast, and after recovering from that hard hit, by cracky, no water came in with some distance still to go to the take-out. Feeling kinda dumb after not seeing the stump and maybe amazed that we weren't sinking in the darkness... that that old fiberglass was still flexible enough bend inward to absorb that kind of abuse.

The ribbed construction isn't perfect, since there are about a dozen patches where the thin fiberglass and ribs have cracked but repairs have been easy, all fiberglass patches have been on the inside.

Not a real test since there was no fifty-year-old foam core hull to compare for durability paddled the same way, still, having some flex in the hull seems to have been a good thing.

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...because you can beat the shit out of it and it still performs.

Try that with your foam core.