Century has produced fine rods in England for nearly 30 years.

A passion for fishing is about escape. To change the routines and stresses of everyday life into the thrill of the environment, brimming with anticipation. Becoming one with yourself and your surroundings.

Century is committed to environmental care in everything it does. We are the first and only rod company in the World to secure the internationally accepted standard for environmental care - ISO14001:2004. Tough - independently audited systems ensure that we protect the environment in making our products.

Our manufacturing processes are demanded by leading anglers, world champions, leading aerospace companies and Formula 1 teams . We are performance driven.

Simon Chilcott, who founded the Company, has always focused on the importance of understanding technology and where it meets the water.

The best rods must blend with the rhythm of fishing and at Century this is captured in the spirit of our designs.

DESIGN PRINCIPALS

The design of any performance fishing rod has to start with a clear concept of where and how you will use it. The feedback has to be direct from the waterside to the factory and filtered through knowledgeable and critical hands. We are based in England and blessed with a combination of quiet, thinking consultants, demanding waters and an abundance of carbon fibre rod manufacturing expertise.

We actively use this combination to be certain that the designs we release will work and stand the test of time. We also constantly survey and monitor our rods to check how they are performing under accelerated ageing. We can submit a rod to the sort of wear and tear that might be expected over several seasons - in just a few months. This feedback is pivotal to the design process and evaluation.

Century will always look to make a design the best at the very outset and when opportunities arise due to new proven advances in technology - look to incorporate these features. The benefits are absorbed into the design only to enhance performance or value for money.

Innovative features such as size 50 SiC based custom butt guides, chevron braiding in ballistic nylon, autoclave curing, GripFast handles, ultra high modulus carbon, Gearbox Design - are all design aspects of our ranges that give you the results and long term reliability you expect.

Fundemental to our design philosophy is that it is all managed under our ISO 900:2000 Quality System, ISO 14001:2004 Environmental System and produced safely under our OHSAS 18001system. No other rod company in the World has all these 3 independently audited accreditations.

TECHNOLOGY

Century has worked at the leading edge of rod design technology and holds the official records for the World’s longest casts. All over 300 yards. This is important because it is only by exploring the very extremes of composite technology that really useful benefits can be incorporated in our mainstream rods. We have learnt both in combination with our tournament work and field testing that there are ways of making rods decidedly better.

One such way is to improve one of the most important stages in the building of a rod blank – the cure process. Traditionally rod blanks have been cured in ovens. However oven curing inevitably leads to air being trapped inside the wall of the rod. This can cause the rod to loose its test curve prematurely and soften after a relatively short period of use. The Century autoclave process delivers the following advantages over oven cured carbon composites:

The air trapped in the wall of an autoclave-cured rod is reabsorbed back into solution in the resin. The science behind this is simply - Henry’s Law. The result is a near void free wall and the rod will retain its original action much longer. The rod will also withstand the rigours of hard fighting fish and long range casts better as a result of an autoclave cure cycle. The composite structure is denser and stronger.

The feel of the rod is crisper and inevitably for the same amount of carbon fibre used in an oven-cured rod – it is slimmer. The carbon has been compacted down under enormous pressure during the cure process.

The resin content of the rod can be precisely controlled - to produce the perfect optimum. This reduces weight and improves the performance.

You simply couldn’t get a modern leading Formula I team or an aerospace company to truly consider a structural carbon composite unless it had been autoclaved. You might hear folk talk about the latest “aerospace carbon fibre” but that’s only half the story unless it’s properly processed.

The benefits this system brings to you - the owner of a Century rod built using this process are remarkable and to the best of our knowledge unique in Carp rods. All this pioneering work has been proven and validated and as our consultants are the most demanding and critical, we know you will enjoy the quantum leap forward in rod technology.

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