Re: [Paddlewise] bracing and power

Chuck wrote:

>>>>>The Iliad has a big blade.<<<<<<


The first WW paddle I actually bought new (from PWS) was an Iliad (204 or
208cm, I think). The blades were just huge and didn't leave much shaft room
between them. Great for bracing and learning to roll. That paddle was very
heavy (and heavy duty and well made with strong glass blades molded over the
shaft material) too and had a rubber grip material over a stout aluminum
shaft. If I didn't paddle at least once a week, the rubber grip would give me
blisters on the inside of my thumb. Once, not too far from the put-in, my wife
capsized the brown glacier fed Nisqually River and had the Iliad snatched from
her grip. The paddle then simply disappeared. Though feathered 90 degrees, no
one on the WKC trip saw it float down river from where she capsized and most
had been diligently looking to recover it. I hiked back to my car and got
another paddle for her, and we continued down the river. Later, I thought that
it must have gotten snagged on the bottom somehow. After the trip (or was it
the next day?) Cam and I went back and with him holding a throwline upstream,
I waded in the waist deep muddy river and felt around in the capsize area with
my feet. Eventually I felt the paddle shaft with my foot or leg. It was
vibrating as the blades, being held down in the rocks by the current fluttered
in the current. I reached down and easily lifted it out. Later, realizing how
much I hated that heavy blister making paddle I wondered why I had even
bothered to go back and look for it. I gave it to a new paddling friend and
told him to get a better paddle as soon as he could afford it.


Chuck wrote:
>>>>>>But sea kayaking requires unrelenting wrist flexing for offset paddles
often
resulting in tendonitis.<<<<<<<


No, it doesn't! Read why not in the "Paddling" manual in the "Maunals" pickbox
on our website. It is in the section about a third of the way in the Paddling
manual called "Paddling Your Kayak" (the last long paragraph before "Motive
Strokes").

Chuck wrote:
>>>>>>I called Werner and asked them to make me some long paddles with 70
degree
offset. I remember it well. They said you can't do that. No one makes
paddles with less than 85 degree offset. Happily, they made what I asked.
And what is acceptable today? Dogma, ever a pain in the ass.<<<<<<<



Actually, I'm pretty sure Werner went to 80 degrees when they got off 90
feather. I already had Collmer making 75 degree feather angle paddles having
determined by testing that 75 degrees was about as far an angle reduction as
you could make without fluky behavior (diving and lifting on alternate sides
in strong headwinds was the catch to going much further). I was using 15
dergee changes during testing. Not much trouble at 75 degrees, lots of trouble
at 60 degrees, the most trouble at 45 degrees. Using my wrist protecting
feather paddle technique (that I developed on the second day of a two week
trip because of wrist problems I developed on the long first paddling day (but
which hadn't bothered me much during years of sprinting and resting in WW
river kayaking using the "bend the wrist back on the control hand" technique I
had been taught). I had to do something or abort the two week trip and
switching to unfeathered as John Dowd recommended was not an option for
someone who had a reactive brace learned from several years of WW paddling.
(Doug, John Dowd probably used a long paddle because he paddled double
Kleppers--he was more influential than anyone in getting new paddlers to use
unfeathered paddles though--to protect the wrists--at a time when feathering
was almost universal--just another example of someone influential leading
their flock astray. Dan Ruuska, Natural Designs, was an early example of a
kayaking guru (for WKC anyhow) using--and advocating--unfeathered paddles when
almost no one else did so for WW kayaking). I have to agree about dogma.

Chuck wrote:
>>>>>>>I had another paddle, don't remember what it was. Was it a Lightning? I
can
remember every paddle I ever had. Except I broke a paddle off Newport, RI
one day while surfing some waves breaking high over a ledge. Poof, two
single blades. I don't remember what that paddle was.<<<<<<<



Chuck, if it was the Lightning paddle, that Cam and I are pretty sure we sold
you (and you don't have now), you should have sent in back to us. Lightning's
owner Hank Hayes, allowed us to offer a three year return policy for any
reason at all (as long as you told us why you were returning it), including
breaking it by accidentally backing your car over it. This guarantee was not
for altuistic reasons. The three times as long as the competition (and
unconditional) guarantee sold more paddles (and most loved them and very few
ever broke). Most customers felt guilty about accepting a brand new paddle
when they broke theirs due to their own negligence (and at least one even
insisted on paying for his own mistake) but mainly we wanted to know if any of
the paddles were failing in use so we could keep them as light as possible and
still have minimal breakage during real kayaking uses. We figured if it didn't
matter to the outcome what the customer told us, they would have no finacial
motive to lie, and thereby giving us a false picture of what the real problems
might be. We didn't want to be trying to fix what wasn't really broke.
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