Preparing for solitary wilderness trip Upper Peninsula, chain of small lakes. Scrappy Old Town Guide 119 for lightweight portage and room for fishing and week of gear. Sometimes use 96 inch kayak paddle, which is quite nice except for drips onto legs, it will be cold, same clothes a few days. Keeping angle low helps, but less power.
Considering experiment: Have access to tube bender, a cheap 96 inch paddle, shaft is aluminum. Idea is to slightly bend shaft directly downward, near the blades, well outside of canoe, so that blades are in water with less angle, less drip. May cause strain on wrist, but lakes are small, not much time will be actually paddling. Has anyone had any experience with this modification?
Unlikely to work
You could try drip rings or drip strings.
Not permanent modifications to your paddle, so if they don’t work you’re not stuck with them.
Bending the shaft is unlikely to work, because the bend won’t be sharp enough to force a drip.
Or just put a waterproof cloth on your legs.
Try it!
It is unlikely anyone else has tried anything so foolish; it will ruin the mechanics.
So, if it works you will be the inventor; perhaps you can even get a patent!
Chances of working is 1 in 10,000; but since no one has tried it, who really knows.
Bad idea
I agree with the last post,…its a bad idea because the blade must be in-line with the shaft so the force brought by your stroke is delivered properly. Bent shaft paddles are only bent ALONG the stroke NOT away perpindicular to the stroke UNLESS its a double bent shaft that brings the blade back in-line. Just get some drip rings. I kayak-paddle my cruising canoes all the time.
ditto
Bending the shaft so the blade is laterally offset from the center of the shaft is going to create a trememdous amount of torque about the shaft as you paddle… unless you have vices for hands and persistance like Sisyphus, you won’t be paddling very far like that.
Drip rings are a good suggestion, but generally work best with a low angle stroke. If your paddle is one piece and thus prevents you from sliding the drip rings onto the shaft, then perhaps some rope tightly tied around the shaft might work (orient the knot where you want the water to drip off). Or speed up your stroke so the centrifugal force “throws” the water off the blades rather than letting it settle down the shaft.
It’s not going to work
but do try it so that you can see that it won’t work.
center of pressure on the blade needs to be in line with the shaft unless you have super-monster grip and robot wrists.