V10 Update

Through the magic of Skype I caught up with Oscar Chalupsky a few days ago. He’s in China at the new factory where the Epic V10 is manufactured and has been inspecting and testing the first production skis.

 

Oscar is combining the testing with training for the Molokai Challenge – surely the first time an athlete has trained for this event on a tidal river (the Fuchun River) in South East China!

Both Oscar and Greg Barton have been testing the V10 Sport – as the photos show.

 

 

“The V10 Sport is incredibly stable,” Oscar said, “and doesn’t appear to be that much slower than the V10. But I’ll be testing and comparing the different skis using GPS and heart rate monitor over the next few weeks.”

 

 

Oscar shared some more information about Epic’s plans for various models of the ski. The V10 comes in three different shapes:

 

• the V10
  
• the V10 Sport – slightly shorter, significantly more stable
  
• the V10L – “L” for low volume for physically lighter paddlers
  

 

 

 

Three different construction layups result in different weights (and costs):

 

• the V10 Ultra is “ultra-light” has a target weight of 9.5-10.5kg
  
• the V10 Standard has a target weight of 14-15.5kg
  
• the V10 Econo has a target weight of around 17kg.

 

Technologies

 

The skis are made from Kevlar and Nomex Honeycomb sheets.

 

The “Ultra” skis have a special paint coating process (multiple primer and paint coats – similar to the paint job on cars) that takes 15 days to complete (although they’re working to reduce the time and cost of this process).

 

The other two layups have vinylester resin coatings.

 

 

The photo above shows a V10 Ultra before finishes. It weighs 8.04kg and is expected to weigh around 10kg once the paint job has been completed and the fittings have been added.