Can anyone tell share the relationship of a paddle blade face size and body weight. My initial assumption is that the heavier a person is (I am), the larger blade face you will need to prevent slip. If you know of a chart can you point me in the right direction?
Submitted by davidld10 on Thu, 09/07/2017 - 7:59am
Never knew paddle blade face to be relatable to weight. To be honest the bigger the face, the more water you can pull. You gonna need to have the muscle, not weight, to pull the paddle threw the water.
When talking about slip, it doesn't matter the size of the paddle face, it matters the plant. I know of a great paddler who uses what he calls a "chop stick" paddle in practice. It's a paddle with out any face, just a straight chop stick looking paddle. He uses this and paddles all over, and keeps up. How? By planing the paddle perfect every time. You miss your plant, you are not going anywhere.
Maybe spend less worry on your paddle, and more on the plant.
#1 Tue, 09/12/2017 - 11:52am
joelmkrause: Yes! Regarding the "chop stick paddle, I remember back in small keed days, when us guys weren't allowed to use outboard motors, so we use the long closet poll to propel our fishing boats, mostly on reefs and shallow water. But when we had to cross over deep water to get to another reef, we stood on the bow and used a kayak style stroke to propel the boat. Surprisingly, the boat moved pretty good in the chop. Us guys never use paddles.
#2 Sun, 10/01/2017 - 4:11pm