Stinger hits pavement!
One of the tests we planned to do on the Stinger Silent Anchor was to have two people carry a kayak with a Stinger mounted on the back, then drop the back of the boat on to pavement. The Stinger would have to withstand this drop and keep working.
Well, we don’t have to do that test now, a customer went way beyond that. The customer had just loaded up his Redfish 12, with a Stinger mounted, on to the top of his Chevy Trailblazer. The back of the boat slid off the top of the truck and the left rear corner of the Stinger struck the pavement first. This is a 6′ 3″ drop to solid pavement! It could not have been worse for the Stinger. Here’s what resulted:
1. Small dent on the left rear corner.
2. Bracket was bent on both sides.
3. The bracket tube remained centered and vertical behind the kayak where originally mounted.
4. 2 of the 8 mounting rivets pulled completely out and failed to hold.
5. 3 of the 8 mounting rivets pulled partially out, yet still held.
6. 3 of the 8 mounting rivets were unaffected.
7. The bracket remained solidly mounted, 100% functional.
8. The customer (who is thrilled) went on to his vacation and used the Stinger all day for 7 days, and said it was 100% functional.
The rivets can be drilled out, the bracket can be wrapped in cloth and straightened on a common vice, with common tools, then the bracket and rivets can be reinstalled…OR NOT! Though we recommend that, the truth is the customer could use the product as is, though we would probably insist they at least replace the rivets that pulled out, about a 5 minute job.
While we were going to perform the drop test from 36″, our actual customer’s test is almost double the test specification, is a REAL test, and the Stinger survived.
We designed it to take a beating, but we had no idea this would happen. What an amazing product.
