Steve wrote; >205 cm is longish? That's 1 cm shorter than my WW paddle, which is >longish for WW, true. It seems to me that a paddle need be no longer than required for the job. For this it should be long enough to reach the water while using effective (and personal) biomechanical movements. From my own experience with my own boat and using my own style my own paddle appears to me about 5 cm too long since the paddle is immersed about 2-3 cm below the point where the shaft meets the top of the blade. I see several things impinging on length. Shoulder height above the water, boat beam, boat freeboard and depth at the cockpit, stroke style, blade length, and specific stroke requirements. There may be more. Since I am talking about a sea kayak paddle I am not sure one can apply the same thinking to whitewater although it might be interesting. Cheers, John Winters Redwing Designs Specialists in Human Powered Watercraft http://home.ican.net/~735769/ *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List Submissions: paddlewise_at_lists.intelenet.net Subscriptions: paddlewise-request_at_lists.intelenet.net Website: http://www.gasp-seakayak.net/paddlewise/ ***************************************************************************Received on Thu Sep 24 1998 - 16:26:17 PDT
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