Hi Craig, Interesting points. I have made the Polar Arctic long paddles exactly from measurements on a museum paddle. I have used the paddle extensively, made many modifications of it and reported back repeatedly. No one accepts anything I have to say about them. To my knowledge, there is no 9 ft GP paddle. That would be one that has a standard GP loom with standard GP (Southwest Greenland) blades. Those blades are pretty chunky in my opinion. The paddles I have made are pretty light and have rather fine blades. I have weighed a number of long arctic paddles, and I know which ones are fine paddles and which ones are clunkers. For some of the clunkers from East Canadian Arctic, the boats were equipped with paddle rests that allowed the hunter to actually row with the paddle using the paddle rest as a pivot point. In testing long paddles, one first has to learn how to use it. I have been doing this for about 25 years. A lot of experts out there have telling us that what I do can't be done. No one has ever complained that I can't keep up or handle demanding conditions, as I have "REPORTED BACK" repeatedly. Why don't tight rope walkers use little short go-fast balance poles? They would clearly be able to wave their arms around and around much more rapidly with rapidly rotating arm motions-some sort gyroscopic motion generated stability I expect. Chuck Sutherland *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - Any opinions or suggestions expressed here are solely those of the writer(s). You must assume the entire responsibility for reliance upon them. All postings copyright the author. Submissions: PaddleWise_at_PaddleWise.net Subscriptions: PaddleWise-request_at_PaddleWise.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.4.0 : Thu Aug 21 2025 - 16:33:53 PDT