Think Rudder issues

I have had yet again an issue with a Think Boat rudder assembly (see rudder issue posting 3-17-08) and the problem appears to be the same. I purchased a glass legend still wrapped in the bubble pack from ocean paddlesports. This. my second ski and an upgrade from my Evo . The evo had a problem with a leak which turned out to be in the rudder assembly , specifically the blobs of resinous material holding the rudder shaft tube to the hull and the rudder box "floor". The boat was inspected by the dealer (OPS) and a warrenty repair was completed locally. Detailed in the forementioned string. I was happy with the outcome and thrilled to be able to paddle my evo confident in the seaworthiness and kindly nature of the hull design. (really loved that ski !). Well time came to move up to a 17" boat and the obvious move for me was the legend. Loved the bucket , love the way it handles , really like paddling this boat.(I am mid packer in the few races I do and more enjoy paddling in the modest and sometimes "bumpier" bump we get here in Socal.) Anyway , so Legend , a couple months after purchase and paddling 3-4 days a week , I come bag from a great session of the bumpier variety and find my ski loaded with water. Hmmm , a leak , where did that come from ? Not from hitting anything or a drop off a trailer I assure you. Well I email think and their response is that I some how broke the boat and they have no responsibilty regarding warrenty. Back and forth a few heated emails and they are saying no warrenty ! Ok so I open up the boat for the repair and discover the lump holding the bottem of the tube to the hull is totally loose , the contact surface is completely shiny (indicating no bonding,and I sent think a picture of this) except for a very thin bead of bond at the edge of the approx. 2inches long by 1 inche wide blob of mystery resin (it looks like polyester resin to me and hence little if any bond to the epoxy resin hull).<by thin I mean about 1/32 of an inch about 1 inch longand on the thinning edge of the conical blob> My point , well I fixed my ski and it is bomber now. If you have a think ski consider this may be an issue for you and if thinks current response is indicative you are on your own for the fix. The market is really small and attention to consumers problems is IMHO key to keeping hold of a share of that market. Hopefully think will address this isssue in an uncontentious manner. I was kinda starting to consider an uno , guess I will be (sorry) re-"thinking" that now. Sandy

PS- tried to attatch picture but the host saidit was to large and couldn't figurehow to compress it

Hello Sandy

I am a regular reader of this site, but when I read your post, I decided to register, so that I could reply to your post.
I bought a Think Evo and it was shipped via air freight and it arrived severely damaged, made worse by completely inadequate packaging which consisted of barely 2 layers of bubble wrap.
But the most expensive damage was the break away of the rudder tube.The ski suffered multiple fractures and concussion damages, but not in the stern section apart from chips at the weed deflector. We assumed that the ski must have suffered a massive jolt to cause the break away of the rudder tube. But after reading about your experience with two Think kayaks it appears more likely that we are dealing here with a manufacturing problem.I simply suffered a double whammy of transport damage and where the improper bonding of the rudder tube broke away during shipping.The repairer commented that no effort had been made to make the resin blob to bond to the hull skin and that the fastening of the tube was technically incorrect and poorly executed.If THINK kayaks is not aware of the problem and have not changed their method, than there must be hundreds of Think kayaks out there with suspect rudder boxes.


So Sandy, yours is not an isolated experience and not all of them make it into the public domain.I also hope THINK KAYAK takes note of this issue.

Cheers,
FOGGY