British Built Heating Elements Help Transform Recreational Watersports

Over the last decade, adults across the UK have more and more chosen to participate in water based recreational activities, especially canoeing, making it the most popular and fastest growing watersport with nearly 1.3 million people taking to the water in their canoes at least once a week.

It’s popularity is perhaps not surprising, when taking account of the numerous benefits canoeing provides, not least that it is a great form of exercise that allows the paddler to take-in spectacular views of British rivers and the surrounding countryside, and for some the added plus of a country pub or two to stop at along the way for a well earned pint and a packet of crisps!

Canoes can be purchased in a number of forms, from basic Canadian canoes suitable for a leisurely meander down the waterway, to the all out ‘play-boats’ that are technically engineered to take on the meanest of white water rapids.

Heating elements play a crucial role in delivering the finished canoe product, most often manufactured using rotational moulding – a high-temperature, low-pressure process that uses biaxial rotation to produce hollow, one-piece plastic parts. The process consists of four key stages:

  1. The loading of polymer into the mould (in exact measured quantity, most frequently in powder form).
  2. The mould rotates, whilst being heated in an oven, using heating element technologies, so that the polymer is melted to a molten state where after it can then adhere itself to the wall of the mould (the mould will be rotated at different speeds to ensure even coverage of the molten polymer to the mould wall). Timing is crucial at this stage of the process – too little time and the polymer will not melt sufficiently, too long and the polymer will degrade impinging of the quality of the finished product.
  3. The mould is cooled (for a set period of time to avoid warping of the plastic) so that the polymer may solidify, shrink and come away from the mould.
  4. The part is removed ready for finishing.

Canoe boat technologies have developed considerably over the past decade to improve performance and enable optimum results for the paddler. Mould design accounts for these advancements to produce canoes that are more easily controllable over and through challenging water. Quality heating elements underpin the process and help to ensure the increasing popularity of canoeing and watersports.