P&H sea kayaks have just released the following statement about the warranty support for any owners who may have had trouble with the new skeg system. I have been testing three Cetus and two Cetus LV kayaks over the last year. Two had perfectly functioning skegs, one had a stiff skeg and two became so stiff they could not be operated and had to be returned to P&H. Throughout, P&H have been highly supportive as they worked to find a solution. This degree of customer support has so impressed the four staff of seakayakphoto.com (who were involved in the testing) that three of us would like to buy a Cetus/LV. Indeed, Tony ordered his on Saturday.
Here is the statement:
P &H Skeg
The P&H Rope skeg system has been in production for more than 3 years, and has mostly proved extremely reliable and made kinked wire issues a problem of the past; allowing your skeg to retract when you ground and then flex back once the water is deep enough. Indeed we are not aware that any skeg has ever broken in any impact.
However, mostly during late 2008 and up to autumn 2009 we have had a few issues with over-tight tolerances, especially on the Cetus LV and Scorpio LV, causing friction and sometimes making it very difficult to operate. Due to the few troublesome skegs we’ve seen it has taken some time to properly assess the problems, and provide fixes.
These fixes are now available under warranty. Production improvements and QC revisions have all been in place from autumn 2009 on PE production, and early 2010 on Composite production and now all skeg systems take no more than 1.5kg (3 lb) of effort to operate.
We are extremely sorry for those who have been inconvenienced and will provide fixes if paddlers will get in touch with us. In the first instance anybody with a stiff skeg should check out the instructions provided on our web site
If this doesn’t resolve the problem fill in the online form. We will then contact you to guide you through fixing the problem, and provide any replacement parts free of charge. If you do not wish to or you are unable to sort the skeg please return the kayak to us here in Runcorn or Derby, or Asheville NC in the USA, and if arranged in advance we should be able to do it whilst you wait.
Sunday, March 21, 2010
Under doctor's orders
The recent hiatus in posting has been caused by a little knee surgery. Being a humble physician, I am not quite sure what the orthopaedic surgeon did, but it took twice as long as the guys who had knee replacements. However I was really quite pleased to escape the catheterisation that one fellow patient required afterwards. Indeed, I quickly sussed that the passport to an early discharge was whether you managed to get up to the toilet during the previous night. So I disconnected myself from the ever so pleasant, self administered morphine machine and attended to some partially ambulatory nocturnal ablutions. I hobbled back, past a large white board, which had patient's name in one column and EDD in another. EDD? Estimated date of death? Felt like it. Estimated date of delivery? I hope not, not at my age anyway. Estimated date of departure? Maybe, but it was still several days too far away.
On the ward round, the next morning, the consultant surgeon was explaining to his entourage, the rationale for performing a complex series of procedures (normally performed on footballers in their mid 20's) on someone who has no recall of ever being 25! "This man," he said quite clearly, "is an uber athlete". Wow, such insight!
His sidekick then asked "On a scale of 1 to 10 how much pain are you in?"
"Oh, less than 1" I whispered, through gritted teeth.
"Discharge!"
So now I am immobilised for 6 weeks, with strict instructions not to weight bear. Bloody hell, footballers in their mid twenties must be tougher than they look. Weight bear? My leg is somewhat nippy and the instructions to not weight bear seem to be ever so slightly superfluous.
I am under doctor's orders.
On the ward round, the next morning, the consultant surgeon was explaining to his entourage, the rationale for performing a complex series of procedures (normally performed on footballers in their mid 20's) on someone who has no recall of ever being 25! "This man," he said quite clearly, "is an uber athlete". Wow, such insight!
His sidekick then asked "On a scale of 1 to 10 how much pain are you in?"
"Oh, less than 1" I whispered, through gritted teeth.
"Discharge!"
So now I am immobilised for 6 weeks, with strict instructions not to weight bear. Bloody hell, footballers in their mid twenties must be tougher than they look. Weight bear? My leg is somewhat nippy and the instructions to not weight bear seem to be ever so slightly superfluous.
I am under doctor's orders.