. Because the paddles moved around too much when shoved far under the deck line, I adjusted them so only the widest part near the tip was under the line. Then I swam up on deck. Once I was up on the deck, I overbalanced and capsized again. This time, the paddle slammed into the water, and the paddle tip snapped off right where the line had crossed it. I finally did a reentry and roll with my storm paddle to complete the self-rescue. Chuck Holst wrote: <SNIP> Because the paddles moved around too much when shoved far under the deck line, I adjusted them so only the widest part near the tip was under the line. Then I swam up on deck. Once I was up on the deck, I overbalanced and capsized again. This time, the paddle slammed into the water, and the paddle tip snapped off right where the line had crossed it. I finally did a reentry and roll with my storm paddle to complete the self-rescue.<SNIP> One of the downsides to a wood paddle? Actually with the way you set up the paddle you created a tremendous force because of the long lever (handle) and short blade tip on the other side of the fulcrum (the line). Had the paddle been stronger you may have been able to use this long lever handle to punch a hole in your boat much like a beer can opener did to a can (before pop-tops). It is not a good idea to set up any paddle with just a little bit of the blade under one line. Cedar is a light wood but unless it has a laminated or very thick (like an Eskimo paddle) shaft I wouldn't trust it to do a paddlefloat rescue unless you knew to be very careful not to put to much weight on the paddle. I suspect that the tip broke as you started to become unbalanced to that side and thereby put a tremendous amount of pressure on the short tip forced against the kayaks deck. Once the tip broke continuing to capsize in that direction would be hard to stop. With a European paddle the line that you first put the blade under should not cross the blade but should cross the (usually) stronger shaft. This also shortens the lever arm available some, so not as much leverage can be applied to overstress the paddle. Matt Broze http://www.marinerkayaks.com *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - All postings copyright the author and not to be reproduced outside PaddleWise without author's permission Submissions: paddlewise_at_lists.intelenet.net Subscriptions: paddlewise-request_at_lists.intelenet.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************Received on Tue Jun 06 2000 - 01:06:02 PDT
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.4.0 : Thu Aug 21 2025 - 16:30:26 PDT