Verlen Kruger Paddle

Hello,The paddle in question is for sale on ebay. I need some information on design,composition and history.Are these paddles still made? THANK’S RPM

Kruger
One doesnt see many of these paddles. Verlen made them for his trips and a few for others. The bent shaft design was fairly new (70’s) via Gene Jensen and used by marathon canoe racers. The owner of this paddle says he got it from Verlen in Louisianna…most likely during Verlens UCC when he and Steve paddled UP the entire Mississippi.

It’s a piece of history. If i had the $ I’d get it just to have. Its heavy for a composite at 20%–Verlen used ZRE later on which are 7oz…much lighter …a difference of 13 oz (at 50 strokes a minute @ 10 hours of paddling ='s over 12 tons less paddle weight lifted in one day)

The size is probably cut to fit verlen. Being short it would make a great UPSTREAM paddle due to the “quickness” of the return stroke etc. Plus Verlen was not that tall. If this paddle did come from the UCC then it would be a great collectors item…since that is the longest paddle trip undertaken by anyone—28,000 miles!!! Who care what the composite and construction are just buy the damn thing…its worth all the stories in the world.

I have one of these
I have one of these at home with a shorter red shaft, maybe 52" overall length.



I don’t think I ever paddled with it, but simply wanted it to have around. I paid $45 for mine from a friend who had two of them. I bought the better of the two.



Another friend of mine has one he actually uses a lot as well as a Kevlar bent shaft of quite a different design Verlen made that he bought from him at Canoecopia many moons ago.

It’s a good idea not to give it hard use
because Verlen used too much Kevlar, both in his boats and in his paddles.



There were lots of trials of Kevlar paddles back around 1980, and they were all failures. It’s a light, tough fiber, but lacks compression strength, and so tends to “scrunch” on the non-power paddle face, and also doesn’t take rock strikes as well as glass or carbon.