The idea to expand our original kayak tour business, Sea Sherpa into manufacturing came after a few conversations with Martyn, the founder of BerleyPro, about not being able to find exactly the ski I was after on the market at the time. Put simply I wanted a boat that could cover ground quickly as is required for offshore fishing down here in Victoria, I wanted a ski that was light and had a good balance of stability to wetted surface area, but I also wanted it to be as easy to customise and rig up as some of the plastic fishing kayaks already on the market. After some preliminary sketches on a napkin, (how all good ideas start) the first Xplora 18 was born...

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After learning the finer points of designing and building resin infused boats from local boat builder Steve Vegh, I went about producing a plug for the Xplora. Many man-hours later we had a prototype out for testing and were soon ready to produce our first run of boats. We sought feedback from our first group of owners on how to tweak and improve the design and used the Covid lockdowns to get to work on re-working the mold for our Gen 2 model. 2022 sees us expand our manufacturing with more models coming on line as well as beginning production of some of Steve Vegh's flatwater racing boats.

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We have a focus on quality, sustainable manufacturing processes. Our boats are built to order using vacuum resin infusion technology and high grade composite reinforcement materials. This makes our boats strong and light for their size and being built here in Melbourne and available direct from the manufacturer, we can reduce overheads and offer you a very competitive price for a ski in this layup.

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Throughout our manufacturing process we have a focus on waste reduction and sustainability. We try to avoid the purchase of single use consumable plastics for our workshop where possible and are active members of our local community recycling groups where we source paper, plastic containers, clothing and bedding that would otherwise have gone to landfill and re-purpose it to help produce our end product. Our next goal in this area is to adopt the use of silicon bag technology on our molds which would allow the same vacuum bag to be re-used on up to 100 boats further reducing the waste output for our manufacturing processes.

 

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Xplora Watercraft are also the Australian distributor for Brača-Sport paddle equipment, the number one choice of Olympians and recreational paddlers the world over. The brand is synonomous with quality and we are proud to be their representatives down under. We can supply the full range of Brača equipment across disciplines: kayak, surf, canoe, outrigger, SUP, dragon boat and polo.  Whatever your paddling needs, get in touch to see what we can do for you.

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