Well only foldable once. Was paddling for a wave and it's jus exploded. Ill head back into the shop this arvo and see what they say it's only a few months old.
It's very odd to see a paddle break out to the side like that.. It's not in the direction of the load/force that is put on the paddle.
Id be a liar if I said I hadn't hit it a few times. I even told the guys in the shop I had they are going to see what they can do.
I was surfing for a few hours this morning before it happened and I hadn't bashed it all morning.
I don't expect it to be covered under warranty at all it's just part of the sport.
Welcome to the exciting world of carbon fibre reinforced material fatigue failure. A wonderful world of defect propagation, blissful paddle after paddle, the initial defect fatigue failure delamination propagates, invisible to the untrained eye, then BANG with no warning - the component finally suffers it's high energy catastrophic failure.
Many a professional cyclist has kissed the pavement at high speed thanks to the wonders of carbon fibre.
You will never see me in one of those new carbon fibre airplanes - crikey, no more metal fatigue cracks to at least give some prior warning.
www.accc.gov.au/consumers/consumer-rights-guarantees/repair-replace-refund
Well it must be the day for it Jason.
This morning I was coming into the Noosa River mouth and as I took a hard stroke I heard a "crunch".
I lifted my paddle out and the whole blade had let go at the bottom joint. Half of the socket was still in place and stuck to the blade the other half was still stuck to the shaft.
The carbon had ripped apart. My paddle was not an Integra it was Fanatic Carbon 80.
I have had this paddle for about 18 months it has been used a lot but has also been very well looked after. Always rinsed and kept in a cover and never used to push off or anything similar.
I will freely admit to being rather smug on this forum about how I don't break paddles in the past. Well I have done it now and it wasn't fun, particularly where it happened and the two kilometre knee paddle back to my car.
I don't believe this paddle broke from misuse, I think it was probably fatigue or similar.
Not good.
ET.
My Fanatic Inegra paddle broke in the same place, had only been used maximum 5 times. Took it back to shop & got credit quickly, they did have to get ok from Fanatic rep.
Was told I'm a paddle breaker, & might have to get used to buying new ones.
INNEGRA CARBON 80
Innegra Carbon has the perfect flex and strength to weight ratio, with additional surface strength to take the knocks of everyday paddling action.
Fanatic might want to reword the description for the innegra paddle. Seems they think its plenty strong to handle knocks. If you knock your paddle on the board hard enough to put a shatter in the carbon whats it do to the board? Maybe in achieving the a light weight paddle they've lost some resilience. Was going to get one of these later this week but seem to be a few breakages.
Welcome to the sport of Sup where at some stage everything does break including paddles, leggies , boards and body parts. If you haven’t filled that list yet , you are simply not trying hard enough.
slightly off topic but how come its wrapped in tape when it's got an inbuilt rail protector runnning round the blade. I'm after a 7.25 inch one of these but this hasnt put me off. Seen plenty of pics of broken 2014 paddles from other more expensive brands.