Crystal Seas Kayaking:
THUNDER BAY & NORTHWEST ONTARIO
Blue sky thinking at its finest...
It's in our nature.
www.visitthunderbay.com
poor nebeginner...
Posted by: NewbTastic on Oct-01-12 10:06 AM (EST)
Geez, don't be shy, tell us what you REALLY think, No_Kayak. =D
Btw, while everyone tells me that Cobra builds with truly excellent quality and materials (and that does cost $$), wouldn't the (much?) lower labor rates in Thailand offset that to a great extent, in terms of cost of manufacture?
OTOH, and as you mention, higher shipping costs and the need for Tiderace to pay Cobra a profit for their services would further cut into any cost advantage.
It's possible that the whole thing is more or less a wash, and Tiderace simply thought Cobra could do it with higher quality than most anyone else in the world, and with a lot less hassle to TR than TR having to set up a world-class boat factory in-house from scratch. Perhaps that kind of stuff doesn't interest Aled, and he'd rather focus on designing boats.
But I certainly don't know for sure, and perhaps unlike nebeginner, I'll 100% freely admit that I'm just speculatin'.