Some people do have wrist problems as a result of using paddles with a lot of feather and the obvious solution is to use a paddle with less feather or an unfeathered one.
Here is some good info from Greg Barton on what feather angle (if any) to use:
You will note that when describing the use of a feathered paddle Greg says:
"The paddle is gripped solidly with the control hand and allowed to rotate in the non-control hand."
He also says:
"Unfeathered paddles do not require wrist rotation and put less strain on the wrist," and: "A lower feather angle requires less wrist action. 60 degrees is a common setting, but you may find you'll be comfortable with something else."
Finally:
"Paddlers who go out regularly in their kayaks, and who gradually build up their mileage, usually do not have wrist problems with a feathered paddle. Top racers paddle thousands of miles per year with feathered paddles and rarely suffer wrist problems. The bottom line is that you should use what feels best to you. If you are experiencing tendonitis in your control wrist and notice it goes away with an unfeathered paddle, then that may be a good choice for you."
This has been pretty much my experience. When I started kayaking whitewater in the 1980s high quality one piece paddles were mostly 80-90 degree feathered so 80 degrees is what I bought and used, and still use. I have had no wrist problems whatsoever, but I would not recommend a beginner these days starting out with a paddle with that much feather.
With paddles with 45 degrees of offset or less, most of the paddle shaft rotation can be accomplished by bending the elbow of the control arm and the wrist can remain mostly straight but paddles with larger degrees of offset generally require some wrist flexion if a fixed control hand is used.
Here is a video of Greg Barton paddling a sea kayak using a right hand control paddle with what looks like a good deal of offset, 60 degrees or more. If you watch the video closely and look at some of the stills you will see that Greg has a good bit of dorsiflexion in his right (control) hand as he takes his left sided power stroke:
Unless You’re Racing Olympic K-1’s Then it makes a hell of a difference. But I agree, if you’re paddling recreationally, why bother? When I paddle my Scuppers and use flat blades, I don’t feather at all, for there’s no need too. But when I’m sprinting, the clock don’t lie. Feather or perish. In fact, I increased my feather from 60 degrees to 80-85 degrees using my fat wing Onno blade with my Fenn Mako Elite surfski and the ski really rockets ahead. No wonder Barton uses an 82 degree “offset” (Barton Mold pg.80).
Ah, you know it’s not nonsense. I use 60 degree, so that’s my personal experience.
There is little wrist-cocking in the video given the feather. He’s controlling most all of it in a much less injury-prone way. His hand is back a little on the forward push. More of an “as little as possible”.
There was a Brent Reitz forward stroke video that specifically addressed this issue. The gist of it was that he was having some wrist problems, and he fixed that by someone pointing out that he didn’t have to do that wrist motion. He got rid of the wrist motion, and it fixed his problem.
The need to eliminate unnecessary wrist motion is not all that uncommon of a problem. It often makes a lot of sense.
hawaiian experience A few years ago I was vacationing in Maui and tried to rent a proper kayak that was not a SOT. I had great difficulty since the market is naturally geared towards tourists.
Eventually I found the one outfitter who was willing to rent a surfski to me, who insisted that my sea kayaking credentials (BCU 3 and Paddle Canada Level 2) were no assurance as to my abilities. He also insisted one of his guides go with me (for a fee).
When we met at the launch, he gave me an Epic surfski and a wing paddle with a high feather. I explained that I typically paddle unfeathered for all the reasons listed above, but he wouldn’t have any of it. He insisted with no trace of humility that a high angle stroke with a feathered blade was the only “correct” method of paddling and all else was a waste of time. He also insisted that the fixed control hand required the large feather angle to allow for the offside blade to enter the water correctly.
I quickly concluded that arguing with him was a waste of time and just got on with it.
My personal take on feathering is mostly that people can make either method work for them. But I think that the fixed control hand is unnecessary and for some people harmful.
For me, there is no control hand. Put another way, each hand is alternately fixed with a tight grip when in the lower position and pulling, and then loose allowing the shaft to rotate freely when in the upper position. Duane Strosaker had a youtube vid showing exactly this a few years ago but it seems to have disappeared.
Save us from the experts I had a guide on a river tour refuse to allow me to use my spray skirt unless I could demonstrate a successful roll. Trouble was, the river was only two feet deep. He still refused and did not see any irony in the situation - as a result, I had to spend a cold day with a wet lap and several inches of water in my boat, a first for me.
Still taught in a lot of whitewater paddling, but the idea of a one sided control hand is largely gone from any long boat training, years ago in my experience. It is long enough gone that I have only encountered it in a class once in the last 12 years, and that was because a student brought the idea in and spent the entire day arguing with Ben Lawry about it. Not sure how much kayak training he got for his money but he got some pricey debate time.
It is not a concept that is critically linked to paddling feathered. Ben is a proponent of feathered paddles, and his racing argues a pretty successful one, but he shares the view that the control hand is the one in command of the paddle at a given point. And that switches from side to side thru the stroke, feathered or not.
So the reality is that if someone comes in arguing that the old one-sided control hand concept is critical to getting a correct stroke, there will be some argument.
But ideas die hard. We still have a local WW paddler who gets into pool sessions and tells people that their sea kayaks will necessarily be harder to roll than any WW boat. I will never be nearly as good as this paddler, but they are stubborn on this one. They still say this after an exhausted younger WW paddler got into the pool dead tired after a weekend of class 4 runs followed by two days of a part time manual labor job after school - and hand rolled my Explorer the first time in it.
We have a local paddler who religiously gets into the winter pool sessions to try and roll their creeker. They also have an Explorer LV at home. They would be up in a single night if I could just convince them to ignore their WW coach and bring the Explorer.
And yet… …at a paddling workshop I attended last year put on by a Werner rep., his overall advice was to do whatever feels best for you but his preference was to use zero feather.