I know folks take a spare paddle when sea or lake kayaking and for good reason. But how does one actually break or lose a paddle? If this happened to you, what were you doing that caused it to break? Looking for lessons learned.
Fortunately, I’ve never broken one.
I broke one way back when trying to roll in shallow water of a surf zone and having the bad form of pushing off the bottom.
I broke one in a class teaching a paddlefloat rescue. I was demoing it before having the students try. Must have put too much pressure on the paddle as it as supporting the boat, and the paddle must have had a weakness, and it snapped at the connection.
More common to get separated from your primary paddle and need to us your spare until you get back together.
I caught on film when I “dropped” my paddle once playing on a pour over and had to use my spare.
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broken: several over the years (mostly in the early (surf learning) years) - all in surf - note: water force, not off bottom)
lost: once - on a trip, predawn (dark), just outside surfzone, taking break, paddle (unsecurely) attached, after break - paddle gone, flashlight look around, can’t find, grab spare paddle before drifting back into surf
I’ve seen people break a paddle when it got caught between rocks on a river. I’ve also seen people break a paddle when they were using it to stabilize the boat when getting into or out of a boat and they slipped and fell on it. Playing in surf, launching and landing, are infamous for having a paddle break.
I broke a rugged Carlisle blade last year by putting my weight fully onto it while pushing my kayak over a mud flat that I didn’t want to step out into. It sounded like a gunshot when it snapped! Ironically, with the blade broken off down to the reinforced section, I still used it all 28 miles the next day because it still felt better than the shorter paddle I was carrying as a spare (250 vs 220). After that, I carry a 250 as a spare, too.
When surfing if you get knocked upside down it’s a pretty standard practice to stick one blade up into white water, power pocket or breaking wave and while in the low brace position you can use the wave to actually roll you up. I have done this twice when getting maytagged over a reef, and the bottom blade under the boat struck the reef and there is enough force to break a carbon shaft.
I was able to repair both paddles using a piece of PVC tubing inside the broken shaft and careful winding of carbon or fiberglass tape around the break and using G-flex resin for the inside and outside repairs.
I broke 2 GL paddles doing violent turns and one euro paddle from hitting a rock with the blade in cold weather. The blade was very cold in transportation and I skidded it off ice and found a rock just a few inches deep, so the blade hit before it could get to the temp of the water.
I have this pic of the last GL I broke.
Well…crap by Steve Zihn, on Flickr
What wood?
That one is Yellow Pine.
Downstream paddles and oars can easily get trashed when caught between rocks and the boat.
I can’t imagine breaks a paddle in salt water or on a lake.
Shark attack?
No---- Just trying to do a few turns I saw on YouTube and didn’t get the action correct.
There 2 videos + another I found from an Australian paddler. (which I can’t seem to find now to post here.)
I twist my body, so I am forcing my leg against the inside of the hull and thigh brace, opposing the
force of the catch of the paddle blade, and by putting too much force into the body twist, I snapped the 1st one off. I thought it was a fluke. The next year I did it again, much in the same way. All the videos show the use of euro paddles but i was trying to do the same with the GL paddles and I extended them about 18" to gain more leverage. I had to break 2 of them before I figures out the things I was doing wrong.
Now I can do the turns and I do still extend the paddles, but I do not put so much force on the paddle to make it gurgle and hiss in the water and feel it flex in my hands.
I have now learned that going that hard against the blade is not doing any good, and that the maximum amount of force (to actually move the kayak) which you can get is before the paddle starts to bubble and cavatine. But I was not aware of that when I was just learning.
I have no one around here to teach me so it was one of MANY trial and error lessons.
Having broken 2 of them I learned that if I don’t force the movement to a point I can feel the paddle flex, and keep the hissing bubble away by slacking up some the kayak actually turns faster and easier.
Years ago, on way around Jekyll Island, I stopped for a brief break.
I stretched out on the back deck (IceKap - low back deck), splashed my hands in the water, then resumed trip.
On the first dip of the paddle into the water - CHOMP, a shark bit the paddle, twice. Did not (seriously) damage the paddle, just left scratch marks where the bite slid off the paddle. I was just happy my hands a minute or 2 earlier went unnoticed by the shark.
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DANG!!! That is a memory that would stick with you.
Makes my tide pool (or sess, per some’s opinion) of stranded thoughts swirl free:
I wanna lead me a life of danger,
I wanna be a Tsunami Ranger.
Tsunami Rangers got brains that’s addled,
pourin’ over their mistakes while sacrificin’ their paddle.
I applaud your sense of balance, at least, whilst butt-burling and twisting for that reserve stick to aft. I always keep my reserve stick bowards, for I find in my narrower hulled (whilst not approaching those 21" on down to 18" cockpitted torpedoes of you Yakmandos, 27" to 26" waterline is skinny to me) canoes even the act of reaching into the cooler behind on glassy waters is fraught in wet-exit potentials. Try’n to grab what appeared to be a sectional from under bungee line while timing up rock-slappin’ doom is no easy feat! Glad you, boat and prodigal paddle got through fine.
There’s Sire-reens on them rocks, Pete, and they ain’t there to love you up none, neither!
Delmar Two-Stick
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Pole Into Punji Stick (w/No Pungo or Pamlico For Alliterative Pith)
I had this beautiful 12-feet long canoe pole of laminated wood that my late friend Brian Sill, a carpenter and craftsman, made for me, after suffering through 2 or 3 years of 10-foot Home Depot closet rod catastrophes. It was strong, it was whippy, it was lovely in its layers of ash, fir and walnut, with one end possessing the usual copper-cap with bolt-spike protrusion, the other a flared knob about door-handle size, with an epoxy tipping for protection. In deep water where bottom contact was out of reach I could really push my 85-pound Uberbot Canoe (later discovered to be a bastardization of an early model Mohawk Blazer, I think, the Royalex sheeting approaching battleship plate thickness) with that monkey-fisted end sunk, the 6-or-so-feet of pole giving a flexing kick to the end of my steroidal Greenland stick.
There I was, all full of cocky self-assuredness, mid-stream on the Middle Yough, having launched about an hour earlier from Paddler’s Retreat to immediately tackle an attainment attempt on Ramcat Rapid, which I didn’t. But I had almost made it, and, I had made it about 3 more miles downriver through the easy class 1 and 2 chutes, twists, boulder dodges, STILL STANDIN’! So, yes, there I was, broached to current in an easy sideways drift, looking back at my compatriots in their Shamans and Outrages and Prospectors and OC-1’s of whathaveyous, feelin’ big as King Kong, a content smirk masquerading as smile on my mug. “Come on you hayseed canoe farmers,” it would almost seem I was saying. But I was just quiet, content.
“UH, Tom,” I believe it was David or Randy said. “Rock.”
Oops. With about 15 or 20 feet to go in downstream 3mph drift, I had what seemed like a small boulder to skirt, as water barely layed up a 3 or 4" lip. Ha, I thought to myself, I’ll just drive in my pointy end as a brake, and pirouette my pointy pirogue about pole. Well, driving in my point was wherein the river drove in her point. Point being, sliding 3 or 4 feet of pole into a submerged boulder slot, at midships of an 85-lb. boat, and 200±lb. clown, and 30 pounds of gear, was not what Brian’s lamination layup was spec’d out for.
“SCHHHHNAPPP!” So I’m now holding this beautifully laminated fist-headed scepter, the kind that no self-respecting Gandalf the Grey, or even Duckhead the Blush would attempt to tell a cave troll or bridge Balrog to stand down for. Worst, though, there’s now a very jagged yet pointy shaft (“Aye. W’eel mak 'im loong pakes. Loong shanks fer Loong Shanks,” I hear Mel brogue in.) And the current’s putting a bit of a tilt towards my new pithy sectional winking back at me with it’s two feet of stick-it-to-the-man poignancy.
“YIKES. Exit, Stage Port, Evennn.” But, before I can make my fall upstream, and, through no poling prowess moves of my own, a pirouette does occur, and, as I grab gunnels with my knees bruised to the bilges, I get one more wink from my parting punji in passing, me spinning into another close boulder (“Lean downstream! Lean downstream!”) as my prodigal toothpick, slowly, gracefully, ungraciously, pops up a foot or two, to tumble prone to surface, and float from my view.
My memory’s not so good from there on down to Elephant Rock and Ohiopyle, but I think I might have used my backup Home Depot pole maybe only a few times snubbing on downstream thereafter, content to make use of an expedition style paddle on my butt or knees (sore knees), all the while looking occasionally weepy-eyed at the scepter of shame laying in my bilges.
Nowadays, boy how I love my sectional, 12-foot Texas Towers aluminum pole! Although there is one-or-two slight wanks to her linearity. Seems the slots and narrows of outrageous riparian fortune still have a thing or two to teach me. It is a dense cranium they attempt to flow. Still, think I’ll go get myself a thicker helmet. And some body armor should I take up the wood pole again. Two of which a friend recently gifted me. Uh-oh.
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Unfortunate that you had a 200 lb clown with you. That must have been some special pole. Because that’s the longest unencryted post Ive seen yet.
Did you keep the remnants? Long splits can often be repaired and maybe reinforced with fiberglass mesh. "I’d rather hear of a stained glass window destroyed . . . " than such a magnificent pole ruined for eternity.
I haven’t broken a paddle, but I have had the ferrule become unglued. That causes randomly changing feather angles which is incompatible with controlling a kayak in surf. I have lost a paddle when it caught on something underwater and it was 12F and the gloves allowed the paddle to slip out of my hands so I grabbed my spare to retrieve my normal paddle. This was in current so my paddle was swimming away a bit quicker than I could react.
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I also had a ferrule come loose once. It really threw me off for a few moments while I was trying to figure out what was going on with my stroke. Thought maybe I was having a stroke and a bit of wobble was going to be my new way.
Last year I was really digging in on a home stretch back to the house against a stiff wind in deep water. It was like a quick microsprint of a few strokes to try to pick up a little extra momentum and see if we could keep it. The blade cracked right where the blade and shaft meet. It was a fairly new paddle, and the makers actually sent me a replacement. I’d like to think my forward stroke is powerful enough to regularly break paddles, but that doesn’t really bear out in my speeds.