That doesn’t explain whether the technique is the same as the olympic races.
You need a good boat, sweet skills, and some big waves to hit 13 mph. My best rides topped at 8 mph, in the 145 and 175 Tsunami. I don’t have the skill to ride faster than that because both boats start to get squirrelly. I know my limitations and am content living vicareously through Sing’s videos.
Tons of videos on YouTube of long distance paddling races with wing paddles.
I’m happy where I am.
I don’t have the range of motion to do the wing paddle stroke. My shoulder no longer rotates. I’m lucky I figured out how to bypass the commonly held wisdom of accepted paddling technique.
General suggestions on paddles. First get the lightest paddle you can comfortably afford. It will improve your day. Paddles by mainstream companies will last for many, many years.
Unless you are into speed and aggressive paddling most people are happiest with a low angle paddle and stroke. The muscles used in a low angle stroke are generally better naturally developed in most people. It might take some conditioning to fully appreciate a high angle paddle. A high angle stroke does tend to put a bit more strain on shoulders.
The correct length of a paddle is when with a properly performed forward stroke, the entire blade, no more and no less, is fully in the water for the majority of the stroke and not hitting the side of the boat. This will be influenced by the dimensions of both the paddler and the boat. High angle paddling technique normally requires a shorter paddle. Most people who use a low angle style will often use a paddle from 215 - 230cm. Wider rec boats need longer paddles. For reasons I’ve never understood, many stores will tend to sell paddles that are too long for a particular paddler and boat.
Bent shaft or straight is a personal choice. Whatever you’re most comfortable with. Most people choose straight. The same is true for feathering. If you find a feather angle that you like, go for it. However, once chosen, stick with it. You want the blade angle to be in muscle memory for paddling, bracing, and rolling. Do not attempt to change the angle to match conditions, or you risk slicing the blade through the water and capsizing. A feathered paddle seems to be less common that it was a few years ago.
A wing paddle is primarily designed for speed and efficiency in the forward stroke. Due to the shape of the blade it doesn’t work quite as well for bracing or when the back side is used as the power face. A wing paddle, properly used, is a high angle paddle.
Greenland paddle are becoming more popular. Many people say that is is easier on the shoulders and excels at rolling and bracing, but is a bit slower than a Euro or wing paddle. Many people make their own at a fraction of the price of manufactured paddles.
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i can paddle low angle with my 205 ikelos or Celtic.
I’ve been paddling off and on for six years and never thought about my paddle. I read many of your posts about the Kalliste and only realized that’s what I have yesterday.
I take that back: I thought about the flutter when trying to roll in the pool and I decided that paddle was no good for it when learning. The GP was the ticket. Maybe once you learn then you can switch back and do better.
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I’m sure you can paddle low angle with a 205 cm blade and do so with a high angle paddle. That doesnt speak to the efficiency of the stroke. I’m sure you could paddle high angle with a snow shovel. Its not about what can be done. Its about efficiency. You can muscle a 17 ft long x 20 inch wide boat that weighs 26 lbs (realize that a 170 Tempest weighs 57 lbs (31 lbs more lbs or 3.73 gallons more displacement), but you can’t keep that up for 3 miles or 10 miles.
That comes to technique. Craig_S is pushing a 17.5 x 24 inch wide boat at 63 lbs to 5.9 mph over a measured course. S.zihn is hitting the hull speed wall in his 17 ft 1.5 in x 21 inch wide Chatham at 63 lbs using what I believe is a home made 4 inch wide by 9 ft paddle. It doesn’t matter what paddle Steve uses, he really can’t go faster. Other kayakers might be faster in a Gucci boat, but not many can match 5.9 mph in a barge. The stat peaks are only relevant in that they’ve both mastered efficiency.
I freely admit, I can’t use a 205 cm paddle, even when I still had a shoulder that allowed me to use a high angle stroke.
It will be a process for me to figure out but what is the formula?
First I will measure my paddle and what else must I know?
I think I am ~22" wide and ~17 ft.
Overall Length: 17’ 7" (535.94cm)
Width: 22.00" (55.88cm)
Depth: 13.25" (33.655cm)
also I think I like it set on 30 degrees, what do you have to say about that?
My experience is similar to yours MohaveFlier, but I started out with a few cheep plastic and aluminum paddles and one that was 100% unmarked but for a molded word “Taiwan” on it. The Taiwan was basically a very large set of white water blades on a long shaft (8 feet overall) My wife got it cheep on Amazon and looking back I expect it was a Frankenstein paddle because of the mismatch shaft length with blades that were around 120 Sq In. I broke one blade when I slipped it off some ice and hit the rock only about 2 inches under water in march of 2022.
But in the 1st year of paddling I tried GL paddles. I made (still make) them myself. My 1st one was not done correctly. I made the loom too long and the blades too short. I found it was so much easier to do all my controls with, but was quite slow because the narrow and too-short-blades didn’t give enough purchase in the water. It gave good and easy response with turns and braces as well as sculling but was just a dog for speed. All even the turns and maneuvers which were instant and easy— but a bit sluggish.
So I made another. It was better.
My 3rd one is still tied for 1st place as my favorite
and so far — I have made about 24 of them for myself, my wife and several friends. My 3rd one I call my “oversized Greenland”. It’s a mix of Aleut and Greenland styles in that I made it with ribs full length down both sides of the blades, and I made it “too big” (I thought) so I could try it and cut and slim it down to what I’d like. It’s 8 feet long and the blades are 4-5/8" wide at the tips. The loom is 20" long. Well, for open water I have found it to be wonderful and it’s also become one of my best performers for all-out speed. “Too big” has not become an issue and because of it’s size and volume it floats super well. Used in a correct GL style low angle stroke it wants to pop to the surface which of course gives a great push to the momentum for the catch on the other side. So despite the fact it weighs 2 pounds 10 Oz it never wears me out like my plastic and metal Taiwan did even though they were both about the same weight.
I have also made several other GL and 5 Aleut paddles, many of which are 8 feet long and a few are at around 9 feet. ( I like to use splits of the very long paddles so they will carry easier. ) My Nephew lives in Alaska and he’s sent me pictures of old paddles from small museums from as far north as Kasilof all the way down to Juno. I was surprised to see how long and how short many of the old paddles were. But paddles with ribs are not uncommon there.
Just this year I bought an Aqua Bound Eagle Ray and Jyak gave me a 240 CM Kalliste (THANK YOU JOHN!!!) and I am now re-learning the use of Euro paddles. I am probably a bit backwards from many other paddlers in that most start out with euros and after some years go to GL if at all. I started with cheep Euros and went to GL and Alaskan paddle in the first 3 months, and now I am coming back to try Euros again. But I find that you are at lest MOSTLY correct. The GL and Aleut are much easier to learn all aspects of paddling then euro blades are. But the Euro blades (at least good one) are a bit faster for lined-out speed!
The Kalliste seems to be an “experts” paddle to me. I was not very good at using it when I first got it (May 16th of this year) and I fluttered on me unless I went quite slow and deliberate with each stroke. But I dedicated myself to learning it because Jyak and a few other paddlers with YEARS of experience all told me it was a top-notch paddle so I KNEW it was my fault, not the tool’s fault.
I have used it 3-6 times a week now since mid May and now I am able to give it power and get my speed up without it fighting me. My Aqua Bound didn’t fight me and I think it’s because the face of the Eagle Ray has a low V shape that aligns the blade to the water’s resistance. No so on the Warner. The Warner seems to be designed to give a maximum bite with no ribs, slots, gullies or Vs to stabilize it. If the stroke is powerful but a bit tilted it twisted back and forth, clockwise and counterclockwise very rapidly. I’ve learned as a teacher of various students in my years as a US Marine, Instructor for DOD and later for a few private companies that proper practice should go slow and as perfect as you can make it, and let speed build naturally. (No one teaches a young child to run from the crawling stage. We teach then to walk and they learn to run by themselves when going slow is no longer necessary) So I’d go as slow as I needed to for a perfect stoke and I did that for half of May, all of June, and now most of July. Guess what! I can go fast with it now. The strokes were just built on until the slowness was not needed.
Jyak was very helpful in his correspondence and also with several phone calls to explain each small detail of what to do and also what to not do. I also talk to a few other very experienced paddlers in California, Hawaii, Alaska and Michigan and gain as much knowledge as I can from each.
One full time instructor in Alaska told me something I thought was very interesting about GL and Euro paddles that no one else has told me, but I have found it to work very well for me. He said you can use a long shafted Euro paddle with a Greenland stroke and let it scull to the surface behind you (far to the rear of the conventional wisdom of a “proper” euro stroke) and you will not go as fast as you can with a textbook stoke, but you can scull and brace in a low sweeping brace with a Euro just as well as you can with a Greenland paddle if you use that sweep AS IF IT WERE A GREENLAND PADDLE! I tried it in hard leans (like a start of a capsize) and found he was 100% correct. It’s really useful in big waves and rough water.
Also if high speed is not a factor, letting a long euro paddle go behind you AFTER you stop applying power just past your hip lets it come to the surface all by itself, so no lifting is required at all. In doing that type of stoke the argument of “lifting water” is eliminated.
The textbook stroke is designed around efficiency which in the mind of most means speed, but for long trips where you are on the water for 8-14 hours that long GL type stroke is easier on you. Even with Euro paddles. You feel the advantage more with longer paddles then short ones, but it works on them all to some extent. Randy K. told me to think about the power of the stroke being from the catch to the hip but then to relax the power and let the kayak go past the blade to bring it up all by itself. Don’t lift it. It lifts itself. As it rises use that momentum to continue the body rotation to the other side and the effect of fatigue on the body, shoulders and wrists is all but eliminated. Rotate and push the blade in front of you down, but do not life the blade behind you up. For me that was easy because the body movements are identical to a GL stroke, the only difference being to let the power slack off once the blade passes the hip with the Euro.
Doesn’t that cause drag? Sure. A little. But just a little. And that drag is what is sculling the blade upward to the surface causing you to lift no water at all and also giving the rotational momentum to start the other side’s catch. The cadence is slower so the kayak is slower, but not as much slower as you might think. For long trips paddling all day it is better for you by the end of the day, and REALLY nice after 4-6 days.
So I would have said as you did that the GL is a “better” all around paddle to learn all the skills with, and I am not yet convinced that’s wrong, but since I have come full circle and am now trying to learn how to use a good set of euros better, I am seeing the euro types can and do also give all you’d need. It’s just a matter of learning how.
As with firearms training, the key is the shooter, not the gun and in paddles the key is learning to use the tool well. Some tools work easier or better for certain jobs and there is no denying that, but becoming 100% devoted to anything without trying other things is perhaps short sighted and would limit me. I will give these Euros a good long test before I make my final decision as to which is better, and even then I know it’s only better for me. My experience may be different then other’s experience, and for a thousand different reasons.
I know that I don’t know! So I seek those I believe DO know.
Some times several experts disagree. To me that’s proof that the issues are about individuals and their individual performance. (Which is easier to learn to shoot with; a revolver or an auto? The RIGHT answer is always about who’s doing the learning. A GOOD teachers sees that and knows how to adjust for it.)
BUT, when 4-5 experts ALL agree on something ----- I think it’s very likely their opinion is gospel.
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Werner has recommendations
On their website? I have to convert, I think its 230 cm (90.5")
It might be a little long for me, I am not sure. It seems the Eddyline is 220 cm and maybe better, I have no idea. I feel since I read here that the stroke should end at the hip my stroke is choppy.
I think I should reach further maybe.
Steve and I are on opposite sides of the spectrum. His love of cheap paddles and fondness for Greenland paddles are opposite my preferences. His troubles with adapting to the Kalliste helped me refine my paddle technique. By replicating his condition, I figured out how to increase my speeds. Ironically, Steve shuns speed in favor of leisurely paddle trips to enjoy the scenery. Mathematically, there’s a relationship between cadence and square inch resistance. Larger blades create more resistance, while smaller blades enable more slippage. The technique for a large blade and a smaller blade is vastly different due to slippage.
Once I duplicated what Steve described, I explained that he was overpowering the paddle, then left it up to him to feel the paddle. What baffles me is that I rejected the notion that a Greenland Paddle could ever equal the power of Euro. He’s pushing his Chatham against the hull speed and no paddle change can improve that, because the energy required to break through hull speed becomes exponential. Frankly, I don’t get it.
Nobody can tell you what size paddle blade or overall length you need. That depends on body dimensions, height from the water, arm length, your stroke, fast/slow twitch muscles, and capacity for endurance. The center of my paddle barely clears the deck and my hands follow the arch of the cockpit. When the blade exits at the end of the stroke, the new power blade has transitioned from shoulder height to level, and its already poised only 16 inches above the water for the catch. That allows a normal cadence of 75 spm. I occasionally push to 80 spm and can see it on my speed graphs as shallower spikes. I stay in a tighter power range to avoid wasted energy in the fring area of my natural reach and capitalize on rapid stroke cycling. I believe the error in high cadence is overpowering a small blade. This is conjecture, but if the boat is moving at 4.5 mph, my paddle velocity might be 4.6 or 4.7 mph. As mentioned in another thread, it takes at least 15 to 20 seconds to go from 3.5 mph to 4.5 mph, but once I get there, I don’t drop out of a bracket. If I want to avg 4.5 mph, I’ll stay between 4.3 and 4.7 mph. Speed fluctuation outside that range tend to be instantaneous rather than trending.
Paddle length depends on how much “loom” or shoulder width you need. My angle is so low, I need a wider grip to clear a 24.5 inch wide deck, because my hands nearly brush the deck contour. Consequently, the blade won’t reach the water with a paddle shorter than 240 cm. Steve traded his 250 cm Eagle for a 240 cm, and seems satisfied with his 240 Kalliste. I actively promote the Kalliste and urged Steve to try it, but his proficiency and achievements with the Greenland has me scratching my head.
As Steve has often repeated, speed isn’t everything. I finally agree. Speed reflects nothing more than relative efficiency. I don’t suggest that my technique is right for anyone but me. You only have the reserve energy you started with. Nothing you eat or drink during the course of the day will change that substantially, so make sure each stroke is properly executed and speed follows.
Craig_S uses an entirely different high angle technique which is more physical. In truth, both can paddle faster than me. Th)e point being that you need to figure out what works for you. The paddle is like a fishing rod that lets you feel the bottom. A light well made paddle is of diminished value if you don’t sense the imput. That isn’t something that can be taught. It has to be felt. That’s why I don’t like jibber jabber while kayaking and don’t think its fun. I simply find it to be rewarding.
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I don’t recall hearing the transition between strokes explained quite like this. I will consciously try it if I can get out tomorrow. Thanks (to Randy K also).
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Well I can’t say I "love’ cheap paddles. I love being able to drink water from my well and have a vehicle that can get in or out of my land, and I love to be able to pay for my electricity and food. Anna and I don’t bring home boat loads of money so I used cheap paddles because that’s what we could afford. But I REALLY enjoy using the Kalliste and learning something new and I can’t thank you enough for that opportunity.
I am fairly strong for an old guy, but 33 bone breaks and 4 wounds are things that have come back to visit, and I am not able to use the heavier cheap Euro paddles for 8-14 hour days and not feel some aches and pains that night or the next day. Those aches and pains went away with my use of wood GL and Alaskan paddles. So that’s where the love came from. I love not feeling pain (odd though it may be, and it may be a fault, but I admit it. I like not being in pain. Call me a sissy)
But with all our extra money going to fix broken trucks, our road, and fix our water well, I have nothing left most months to play with. So my “love” was not about paddles themselves, but about water in our home, transportation, electricity, food and so on. Life is that thing that keeps interfering with my selfish desires.
But your help was SUPER important to me. The flutter left me when you explained the whole “wood gouge or chisel” angle, and I had to go slow and carefully to do it right, but once I did it for many hours, several times a week, I got comfortable with it and the “need for slowness” started to disappear. The catch on the Kalliste seems better if it’s stabbed in like a spear, not sliced in like a carving knife. 2 years of slicing a GL into the water like a carving knife was not something I just stopped doing instantly. Loading one edge (The lower) of the Warner a bit sooner then I did the other edge (the upper) caused it to twist and once that started I never could stop it. It would twist towards the bottom edge until my grip overcame the movement and then snap back past center to spill water off the top edge, and would do that back and forth about 4 times a second. If I slowed down enough to keep it from starting I could do a good stroke, but only about 25 per minute.
Once you told me about the idea of a wood gouge and following the curve of the blade the flutter simply vanished but I had to built up speed for that new movement slowly. For me I needed to learn a totally new set of movements left and right, and they were not natural to me.
With the Eagle Ray I could go for broke right off. The first day I could push that paddle as hard as I wanted to, but it’s heavier and longer, and the spill of water from both sides of the blades coming off equally because of it’s shallow inverted V shape made it easy. But now that I am paying attention to the bow wave size on my kayak, I see the Kalliste is as fast with a bit less force applied. So I finally understand what you have been saying to me for 3 years. It’s like trying to explain a rainbow to a man who was born blind. The concepts of what you said were not anything I could understand because I had nothing to compare them to.
And please don’t get overly analytical about my speeds. You are likely giving me too much credit.
Keep in mind I am using a cell phone (that’s not even mine) and a map with a set of dividers to figure out my approximate speeds. In the days the water is pretty flat (up to maybe 6" ripples and “waves”) I can compare one paddle to another not by calculation of anything but by seeing how far up I can make the bow of my kayak go on top of it’s bow wave. Once I get it to climb up about 2"-3" higher then it sits standing still I have not been able to go faster. But with some paddles I can’t get it to climb up that much and with other I can. How fast is that? I don’t really know.
I have a friend who rows a rowing shell with 10 foot ores and a seat that slides back and forth and he tells me what he believes. He is a former competitor and raced in California and also in Maine. He was into speed and timed events for a long time. So when Bret tells me I am going very fast I will believe him, but how fast that is I can’t say. He gave me a GPS one time and told me to start as soon as I pushed a button and to stop when the alarm sounded, and he’d pace me and get the GPS back at the end of 1 mile. So I did as he asked and stopped paddling when it beeped at me. He was about 200 yards behind and rowed up to me and was jabberer about how much faster I’d done that mile then he though I could. I can’t remember what he said it was in MPH, but he said he could not catch me and he had tried. He told me he let me got out a ways and thought he’s just zip right up behind me. But once he started to go full-speed he never did catch me until I stopped paddling. He told me how fast the GPS said I went, but I didn’t really pay attention. All I paid attention to was his “goings on” about how he was so shocked at how fast a kayak was. To me I was just a good effort, but not at 100%. I find if I go 100% I often feel pain afterwards, so I don’t do that now. But if Bret says it was fast I’ll just believe him. He said he thought I didn’t have a chance of outrunning him but that proved to be wrong.
But as John says, I don’t have any dedicated interest in speed for the sake of speed. I like the lakes and the cliffs, rocks, birds, fish, deer, elk, antelope and so on. I go out to enjoy it all. If I have a reason to go fast I go fast, but not just for the reason of speed itself. I have had a friend, Thor, ask me to race him once and I have had to play catch-up a few times with a group of other kayakers. I went as fast is I thought I could those times. One time a lightning bolt hit a cliff pretty close to me and THAT got me to go fast and get off the water! But unless I see some specific reason for speed I usually don’t go all that fast. 3.5 MPH or maybe 3.75 MPH is a very good speed to go from one place to the next — to look at things and practice maneuvers and rolls. I enjoy doing tight turns and bracing more then I enjoy going fast. So as you said John, we have different goals for a lot of what we do.
As far as me overpowering the paddle (the Kalliste) I am unsure. Now that I am doing what you told me to do I can go about 60-65 SPM with no problems. Faster makes it vibrate and make a slight hiss and seems to be stressful on my shoulders. And when I do that the bow only climbs up a very slight amount higher then I am getting at 65 SPM. So I can’t see how it’s helping me. But at about 65 SPM with the Kalliste I can get the kayak to climb up a bit on it’s bow and I can do that with the Aqua Bound too but the Aqua Bound needs a little faster cadence to do it. My 9 foot GL and my 8 foot “oversize GL” are also both paddles I can o that with. But with most of the paddles I have accumulated I can’t get the bow to climb up as high and with a few I can’t get it to climb at all. I just make a gurgling stroke with them but the kayak goes no faster.
With my big and long wood paddles I do a very pronounced torso rotation and I combine that with a body crunch pushing the upper blade on every stroke. With those paddle I can get the bow up a few inches and keep it there for probably a mile or so. I also do a small extension with each stroke as I start the catch on the other side. It’s a bit like the stroke you use with a storm paddle. My sprinting stoke is a “high low angle” or maybe a “low High angle”, but I can get a lot of thrust from a lever that’s 5 feet or so, out from the side of the kayak.
In fact that’s the way I was paddling that time I broke off the blade on my 9 foot GL and had to paddle back with the marsh paddle. (That’s also THE reason I decided to buy a good Euro paddle as a spare, and that was the 250 CM Carbon Eagle Ray.
My way of counting stroke per minute is also not very good. I simply count seconds, like I did when doing land navigation over steep ground in the Marines . I can get my count pretty accurate, but not perfectly accurate. So even my SPM are good guesses at best. (How good I really don’t know) I can also use the cell phone to a point, but it counts minutes only not seconds and It’s not precise because I have to pick it up to see it and use it and so I have to guess at the time lost each time I check.
You say “Speed reflects nothing more than relative efficiency.” YES! But even narrower, it reflects efficiency of only the forward stroke. My love for GL and Aleut paddle is their efficiency at all the other aspects of kayaking.
I am not 100% convinced Wood GL and Aleut paddles are BETTER for sculling, rolling, bracing and maneuvering. But I am convinced they are easier to learn them all with. And I am not closed to the idea that no modern paddle will ever be a better all-around tool for everything but speed then a GL or Aleut paddle.
But ----------I am an newbie. I know that I don’t know.
What I am trying to find out is WHAT I don’t know.
Once I learn that --------- the WHAT------ I then know what to try to go learn. What to go find out about.
I think if one knows he doesn’t know------ and he wants to know -----------He’s the one that is easy to teach.
@szihn you like cheap paddles because you take pleasure in extract performance from a block of wood.
Well ok, there’s that too.
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Those blocks of wood aren’t cheap.
I think some of his blocks were converted from the woodpile. If they break, back to the wood pile. Double duty.