My 1st wing paddle experience......

Wing paddles work well with no feather
Can’t imagine why you would think otherwise. If you are racing then feathering gives you a very small advantage against apparent wind. Otherwise you are better off with no feather.

No feather either
Have no issues with my wrists.

Another no feather
and no wrist problems.



Some I know lower the feather angle to 30 or 45 deg. I don’t see the point.

80 Degress Is Just About Right For Me
If you cock your wrists or paddle limp wristed, you’ll develop problems. Keep your wrists straight at all times and avoid problems.

Splashing
I take back my comment that my wing doesn’t splash. I looked at my stroke yesterday and indeed it does send up a “curtain” of water after it exits due to the curve in the blade. I think I have a good, high angle, fast performance stroke, and yes, it splashes.

High Angle No feather No problem
I use a wing unfeathered. It works just fine. I used a 60 degree feather for a while, but after years of paddling a Greenland-stick, I didn’t see the need.



Recently I was teaching at a symposium with Ken Fink, and he was shocked to learn that I wasn’t feathering my wing. He trusted that I knew what I was talking about, but he was surprised, as the general consensus is that you have to feather to allow proper forearm rotation, and neutral wrists, with a high angle stroke.



It’s a basic Greenland-style skill to allow rotation on each side as you take a stroke, in other words you change control hands on every stroke and the stroke is perfectly symmetrical. It permits a very high or very low stroke. It sounds complex but is actually very easy, especially if you keep a very light grip and open the pushing hand as you stroke.



To cut through the confusion, Duane Strosaker created the following short video segment to explain this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=lThvWNLOTWQ



Greg Stamer

Show me
Someone needs to post a video of a wing paddle being used with no feather AND correct form. That means no pulling, good torso rotation, the pumping of the legs, and absolutely no wrist twisting.



This may explain the noise issue, you’re twisting the paddle as it comes out of the water to align it for use on the other side.

show me
Why you need feather to achieve all you are asking. No pulling? I pull pretty hard on that paddle everytime through:) Read gregs post above I feel he did a pretty good job explaining, and he probably has credibility.



Ryan L.

well
Paddles are by necessity feathered in one direction.

Does that imply that there is good rotation and proper form on one side?

If the stroke is supposed to be symmetrical on both sides why is there a feather?


Makes no sense to me either

– Last Updated: Feb-07-12 10:39 AM EST –

I'm no kayaker, but I have played around with a double blade, with and without feather. I paddled a duck boat for years using a home-built paddle with no feather. The first time I used a feathered paddle the first thing I noticed was that I needed to twist my wrists with each stroke or the blades wouldn't catch in the water. I don't twist my wrists at all with no feather, just keep them neutral. Anything else would mis-align the blade. Old-school paddlers with 90-degree feather had to twist their wrists a huge amount to account for so much difference between blade angles. Having less feather means you have to twist your wrists less than with the old 90-degree method, and no feather at all means you don't have to twist your wrists at all.

Eliminating the difference between the blade angles CREATES the need to twist them? That just makes no sense at all.

By the way, the odd thing about people thinking feather is necessary for ease of wrist motion is that they've apparently never noticed that the shaft rotates in opposite directions when getting ready for right and left blade use, and the wrist motion required is not anatomically the same for both hands. The physical constraints of how the blades are aligned make it impossible for the two wrists to go through the same motion (mirror images of each other an anatomically identical). So, WHICH wrist is benefiting from feather and which is not? They can't both benefit since the motions and position are not the same.

I'm not saying feather is a bad thing, just that you can't define the wrist motion as natural when neither wrist is doing the same thing as the other at corresponding parts of the stroke. If for some reason you can't "see" this, just increase the feather and look again.

Here's a perfect example: Think about all the times you've paddled with a first timer, especially a kid. Put a feathered paddle in their hands and they end up slicing the blade on every other stroke because they don't have the muscle memory to twist the shaft the right amount. Give them a paddle with no feather and the blade is perfectly aligned with every stroke because they don't have to "do" anything or "think" to make it happen. Just think about how many times you've seen this exact thing happen with first-time paddlers and try to explain it using the "feathering is a natural motion" theory.

.
Just to let folks know - twisting the paddle doesn’t have to be accomplished by cocking one’s wrist. The “proper” way is to to bend arm at the elbow while keeping the wrist straight, the angle of the other blade will change.

Unfortunately, this precludes having arms straight and puts quite a bit of strain on the elbows for the more extreme paddling bits, say sprinting, or even prolonged effort paddling. Wrists are getting strained as well since the force is not applied along the wrist but a cocked quite a bit.



Of course, you experiences may vary :wink:

1% ers
That’s right, the correct way is to use leave the bottom arm straight while using the top arm to remove the paddle from the water. The wrists stay neutral during the entire stroke. This can only be done with a properly feathered paddle. The video posted above looks fine, but when the poster transitions into high angle, his stroke goes to hell and he begins pulling with his arms.



Here’s a great piece of data:

http://www.surfski.info/getting-started/tips-other/item/1270-what-feather-angle-do-you-use?-greg-barton-on-wing-paddles.html



99% of wing paddlers paddle with a feathered paddle. Search YouTube and find me a video of someone using a wing paddle that isn’t feathered. That is my challenge to you.

Are you kidding?

– Last Updated: Feb-08-12 8:41 PM EST –

Feather has nothing to do with what you just described...

The reason there are few if any top competitive wing paddle racers at 0 feather is that it does make sense to have feather to minimize air resitance. I do not see any other benefit using feather on a wing.

There are, however, many "regular" paddlers who sometimes race recreationally who use non-feathered wing or euro or GP or whatever. Myself included, for the past few years, after switching away from feather.

Remember that while in the water the hand that pulls is oriented the same way always, no mater the feather angle. The top hand is not really supsed to hold the shaft too tight at the same time - so for that hand it too does not matter what the feather angle is. So your last explanation makes no sense to me at all...

As mentioned, after the recovery, with unfeathered paddle, there is on the average less adjustment needed to orient the paddle to enter the water for the next stroke compared to feathered padldles. Don't think there is a valid point against that either ...

That article says the same thing I did.
It says that the more feather you use, the more wrist motion is required to twist the shaft, and conversely, the less feather, the less wrist motion, down to the point that zero feather requires zero wrist motion. That’s hardly a case in support of your earlier post where you asked “How did your wrists feel after all the torquing you must have had to do using a wing with no feather?”

More Wrist Movement Unfeatherd
Funny: set the two piece wing paddle to 0 degree unfeathered and found there was more wrist movement than when it is feathered. If I don’t move the wrist, my angle of attack is off on the starboard side. Must be my technique? For there is very little, if any, wrist movement at 80 degrees feather with a non-indexed shaft to get the angle of attack right.



Regarding kids: When my 10 year old received her small wing Onno paddle, she experimented at various settings and liked 82 degrees the best rather than the 60 degrees I initially set the feather at. Four years later, it is still set at 82 degrees and no wrist problems so far.

The trick is …

– Last Updated: Feb-09-12 9:24 AM EST –

... to time the hand-off (pun intended) between which hand grips and which one slips -;) Do that on an unfeathered paddle, and there is no wrist movement required regardless of whether you do high or low angle stroke. Watch Duane's video that someone linked to above - it explains it and shows it. You orient the blade partly with the lower hand at the exit, then hand-off to the upper hand in mid-air, which now becomes the leading hand (lower hand) that finishes the orientation of the blade as it dips in the water and the shaft rotates in the other hand (now it is the upper hand).

It is similar for feathered - you still have to orient the paddle blade to the water for each stroke. The difference is that with a single control hand on a feathered paddle you do the orientation with that hand only, while the shaft rotates in the other hand.

So, technically, if one did not let go off the shaft with either hand, yes - there will be wrist cocking on a non-feathered paddle as well as on a feathered. But if one does the hand-off of control/grip, regardless of feather, there is not much wrist movement involved. As explained earlier in the thread, the motion of the forearm lifting the paddle out of the water does the work of partially orienting the blade for a non-feathered paddle, then in mid-air, the forward arm finishes the job. For feathered paddle if you have a control hand then that hand does all the "work" on orienting the paddle ...

chicken / egg
What was first - your habit to use feather or bio-mechanical justification to use feather?

Symmetry
With no feather, unless you have really bad technique or muscle memory from using a feathered paddle, whatever wrist movement there is has to be the same on both sides. It makes no sense that you would get more wrist movement on the starboard side.

Gave It The Good Old College Try
This afternoon, and the verdict is: depends on your style of paddling and the kayak you’re paddling. The paddle I used was a 208 cm Onno Small Wing paddle. The Kayak was a S. African Icon surfski. Water conditions were light moderate chop. After an hour and a half of fooling around, I headed home with the paddle set at 60 degrees feather, which was perfect for my individual style of paddling a very tippy kayak. To me, no feather resulted in more bracing, unlike the feathered paddle, where power strokes were used in place of a brace.

ROFL
It you stop to think for a bit you will notice that you should’ve had difficulty bracing only on one side, right?



Again, let me repeat myself - is it a habit of paddling feathered or the mechanics of paddle and stroke that make you paddle feathered?