Boats made up of Crestapol, an ambient curing urethane acrylate thermosetting resin, developed by Scott Bader, a UK-based chemical company, have bagged the top three positions at the 2015 ICF World Championship Finals for Freestyle Kayaking that took place on September 5, 2015 at Garberator Wave, on the Ottawa River in Canada.

In both the men’s and women’s K1 and Squirt boat classes, top podium positions were gained by 11 of the 12 winning competitors paddling custom made composite kayaks from Murky Water Paddling Supplies Ltd. and Jackson Kayaks, made of Crestapol for producing high performance carbon fibre reinforced, glass fibre, and aramid fibre parts by vacuum infusion or resin transfer moulding (RTM) at room temperature.

The performance of the Crestapol 1250LV prototype boat helped the Murky Water team win the competition with additional weight reduction and greater impact strength, toughness and durability to cope with the extensive amount of repeated high impact in rocky shallows, sliding down rocky sections and the water slamming after taking off that occurs when whitewater kayaking in fast running rivers, according to a press release.

Due to the very high mechanical properties of the Crestapol resin, combined with the greater vacuum infusion moulding control possible, less resin is used and so a thinner, lighter laminate can be moulded, saving both weight and cost, with improved laminate performance.

Murky Water also found a number of attractive production benefits to using Crestapol. The resin is fully compatible with both a conventional UV weather resistant unsaturated polyester resin (UPR) marine grade gelcoat and the woven CF-Innegra HIC reinforcements. Secondly, Crestapol 1250LV infusion resin proved to be much easier and quicker to process, curing rapidly at ambient temperature, with no requirement for any post-cure treatment. (GK)