Bob Denton wrote: > > Jeff Bingham has painted his Toksook blades red on one side and yellow on > the other, so not only can you see them from a distance, you can tell what > direction he's paddling. > Aquabound makes a fairly inexpensive paddle with some carbon in it that makes it lightweight. But all black. The first thing I did was put those 4 inch by 4 inch (I think that is their size or perhaps a bit smaller) reflective sold by ACR (I think) on both sides of each paddle blade. I was in a hurry and so just did it. But if I had had time or thought about it I would have used some day-glo paint. I don't think the reflective tape is as visible except under some lighting conditions. One of these days I may try to get the best of both worlds; temporarily mask the reflective tape and spray paint the blades with day glo paint right down to where they meet the shaft. I suspect the paint doesn't hold up that well over time and so would need retouching every so often. I agree with Matt Broze that is the paddles that show the most but I don't at all agree that boat color and PFD color don't make much of a difference. I can see a yellow boat at well over a mile and a yellow PFD pretty far off too. A person with day-glo paddle blades who is wearing a yellow or bright orange PFD in a bright yellow or orange boat stands out quite sharply. While not foolproof, such bright color display has a better chance of catch a corner of an inattentive motorboat operator's eye than black paddles, olive drab deck and black PFD. Remember the two rules of boating safety: 1) Do everything you can to make yourself visible. 2) Act always as if you cannot be seen at all. ralph ralph -- ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Ralph Diaz . . . Folding Kayaker newsletter PO Box 0754, New York, NY 10024 Tel: 212-724-5069; E-mail: rdiaz_at_ix.netcom.com "Where's your sea kayak?"----"It's in the bag." ----------------------------------------------------------------------- *************************************************************************** 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 Jun 10 1999 - 07:26:23 PDT
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