Valley Sea Kayaks have just announced that they are intending to rationalise their range of sea kayaks. This follows the introduction of various the new designs over the last two years, the most notable being the Etain range. The result of this rationalisation process is that certain models are to be discontinued permanently.
The last date for placing orders with Valley is the 31st of August this year so anyone considering purchasing one of the soon-to-be discontinued models has just over a week to make a decision and place an order.
Discontinued Valley Sea Kayaks
The models to be discontinued are as follows:
- Pintail – keyhole & ocean versions
- Aquanaut – all composite models: Std LV HV
- Aquanaut RM – LV HV
- Q-Boat
- Nordkapp Classics – old HM & HS versions
Revised Valley Sea Kayak Line Up
The revised Valley range of sea kayaks will therefore look like this.
- Gemini ST
- Gemini SP
- Avocet – Std, LV, RM, VCP
- Etain – 17-7, 17-5, 17-3, 17-7 RM, 17-5 RM
- Nordkapp – Std, LV, RM
- Rapier – 20, 18
- Anas Acuta – Ocean & Keyhole
- Aleut II
- Aquanaut Club
Useful Links
Valley Sea Kayaks – The Valley Sea Kayaks Website
“Useful Links”? And you list *Valley’s* website as one of those???
That’s unintentionally funny. Valley updates their website maybe once every couple of years, if you’re lucky. Still nothing on all on these changes on their site.
I agree it is a shame the website isn’t updated regularly that being said the info about the boats is available on the site so if folks wanted to see what was going/being kept it’s still a useful link
True Duncan, but we would’ve never found out about all those boats being discontinued if not for you and SSK… there’s nothing about it on Valley’s site.
This would be quite the kick in the head if someone had been planning on buying, say, an Aquanaut this fall, and hadn’t read this story first. =[
Great kayaks but terrible website (actually a joke) – especially in this day and age. Also, as a Valley customer I have sent them several emails over the years and never received a response. Too bad we have to find out information from distributors – sometimes after the fact. If their kayaks weren’t so nice I wouldn’t patronize them at all.
Come on Peter, time to upgrade the customer service aspects of your business.
Vito hit the nail on the head.
Valley’s attitude just mystifies me. I don’t understand why they think that’s a good way to treat customers and potential customers.
I mean, it’s not like we don’t have a lot of other options in high-end sea kayaks these days… P&H, Rockpool, Tiderace, NDK. Heck, Tahe has been coming on strong lately too, and a lot of ppl didn’t even know who they were ’til recently.
Valley has a distinguished history and makes nice boats, but a lot of other ppl make nice boats as well, and a company’s pedigree is no excuse for having poor customer service. In fact, you’d kind of expect that the company with the best pedigree would treat customers best, not worst. =[
I concur with the above posts. I own a Valley Nordkapp and really like the boat. I have been interested in an Aquanaut for sometime as well and if I didn’t read a post on paddling.net that referenced this website I would have never known it is being discontinued.
My nearest Valley retailer is four hours away and their website is also being revised. I trust it will not become several years outdated like the Valley website. At least they respond to emails.
Time for Valley to join the 21st century. It’s not enough to have a great product (which they do), they must also be customer and market oriented in order to keep an “even keel” with their competition, much less offer any advantages.
It is a competitive marketplace.
PS- Question for Duncan: Where did Valley ‘announce’ this?
Solent is the only site where I’ve seen this, a couple of kayak forums mention it but only in reference to your article on it.
Did they just tell their distributors and you and that’s it?
@Lenard: I heard about it from a couple of Valley dealers. I’m not sure who Valley passed this info to I’m afraid, apart from their dealer network.
I wrote Valley Canoe Products about the Pintail, and got this response:
“Yes this is true, the Pintail will be discontinued at the end of this month. ”
I didn’t ask about the other models.
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René Seindal – rene@venicekayak.com – +39 346 477 1327
Venice Kayak – http://www.venicekayak.com – http://www.facebook.com/venicekayak