I am utterly dissapointed in the performance of my BOTE Board the Rackham, heres the message I sent them - I gave them 2 stars... It's an easy 5 star board, but if the board doesn't last more than a year then what the the .... is the point:
So I have owned my BOTE Rackham for about a year now - and I will say this, at fist I was so impressed and in love with the board. I bought over 400$ in accessory equipment, thinking to myself, I am going to be a BOTE paddler boarder for life so why not! I told my local surf shops about BOTE and I was stoked.
Well, one year later, I have begun to notice that I am not sitting as high on the waterline as I once did. And I notice that the board feels slightly heavier. So after careful inspection I found several dings, cracks and chips...I guess I am waterlogged... Now, its a 12 ft board, we can expect that it will bump into things or perhaps I ran it aground on the sand too hard... if that's a thing... but I will say this... You are charging an exuberant amount of money for a product that does not hold up. I've surfed my entire life, short boards, long boards and all. It dings almost on the level of a fiberglass surf board... Except it's not 5'10 its 12 feet... How do you make a product so large and not expect it to ever bump into anything. I also stored the board on two wooden two by fours and they're are dings from just resting on the wood. There was nothing on top of the board, so the board dinged/dented from its own weight on the two pieces of wood? I didn't know that was a thing...
I see that you came out with the Gatorshell and in the video it looks like you guys hit it with an upholstery hammer, or some other small hammer to prove its strength. We just want a board that's durable and it would be fricking great if we could store it in a place that has moderate sunshine. Not all of us live in Florida with 1000 square foot garages...
So now that I've pointed out the obvious information that I am sure you already know... Let's talk about a few other issues with the board... The stomp pad(s): The design is an utter failure... The layer of 100s of little diamond shaped stomp pads flake off like fish scales.. and it usually happens when I am using the board, so those little toxic pieces of plastic end up in the bay and ocean...
Cup holder thing: that cool little cup holder detail that im supposed to store my beer in or better yet my car keys... It's not water tight and I was unable to screw the cap on correctly after like a month of use...
Suggestions:
While I am not engineer, and therefore cannot tell you how best to strengthen your product, I can tell you this: The hard edge rails take the most damage... I would soften the rails.
Regarding the stomp pads - less is more. Rather than 100 little pieces of stomp pad glued to themselves, I would look into just a few large ones, so as they fall apart, because they will, we can replace them and discard of them appropriately, rather than watch them randomly flake off and float away in the bay.
Sadly, I didn't read any reviews about your boards, but after noticing my issues, I did and I saw that I am not the first to complain about the durability and I won't be the last. Any and every experienced waterman/woman will come to the same realization as I have... especially when compared to other boards... AKA the Hobbie paddle board i bought 2 months before I bought the Rackham... Hobbie will not be receiving this kind of email from me. That board has held up fine and it was like 800$ cheaper.
So where do we go from here... I listed my complaints and even some suggestions. I doubt you guys are going to replace/repair/reimburse me for a board that I used and enjoyed but I think it is safe to say, you probably lost me as a life long customer. Which means I am going to have to try to sell those 2, 200$ tackle rack/bucket rack accessory items or re-purpose them in my garden...
I'll be honest this whole thing gives me the hebe jebes, the fact that I spent over 2 grand on a product that has significantly declined in performance in a single year is not fun a realization, I feel ripped off and taken advantage of...
One last suggestion, maybe put a review section on your website so people know exactly what they're getting into. I will be posting this complaint on other paddle board forums.
Thanks
-previously happy costumer
