How do you SECURE your spare paddle when going through the surf zone?
Mine is normally stowed behind me on the rear deck. So far so good. They stayed put, while everything else on the fore deck had at one time or another been washed away (water bottle, pump, map).
Was I just being lucky that my spare paddle stay put so far? But if not, how else can I secure it so it doesn't get washed away? The small stuff, I put them inside the cockpit (behind the seat). But 2-piece paddle is a bit long and unyielding to try to stow inside the cockpit. Plus if I were to get knocked over and trying to roll up, I don't fancy the thought of the spare paddle digging into my stomach (or worse spot)!
Surf loop Works great for pumps and paddles. You can either put shaft end of the paddle under the bungee cord and spin it around one or two times, or pick up the bungee and make a loop before putting whatever through it. A little tough to re-stow paddles from the cockpit, but a good way to keep things down before heading out.
Exactly that… …stowed TIGHT on the front deck, but able to be accessed if needed…mine is a (one piece) GP storm paddle, built for the boat…so that aft blade rides within very easy reach.
North Water paddle britches Another vote in their favor. Britches easily secure to my bow bungee/perimeter lines and holds my Euro in place when I’m using my GP.
I stow mine on the back deck. Instead of just putting the ends of the shaft under the bungee, I’ll take the bungee and give it one wrap around each shaft. Seems to hold everything in place pretty well.
Neptune’s Rangers use front deck If you look at this video - http://youtu.be/SSUmd038ATE - you will see that most of the Neptune’s Rangers use them on their front decks. They often have extra length of deck lines and bungees installed to which wraps around the paddle shaft to ensure they hold on (and as the video shows - there is reason for that).
Front deck gives better access should you need to get at it in an emergency (like grabbing a half of the spare paddle to roll up, if you lose your paddle).
Back deck can be an issue of how to access for some - but likely not an issue for most (here is a helmet cam video I took when I dropped my paddle back when I had my paddles on my back deck, so had to grab my spare: http://youtu.be/VWJYnZnGDBU). But on back deck often can cause issues when doing rescues as you are now rescuing over the paddles.
On my longer boat, I often put half front and half back. I can scramble easily over the half paddle, but I also like having it there to help hold the rear hatch on.
North Water Paddle Britches work fine in easy to moderate conditions - 95% of my paddling adventures. After about 2 ft wave conditions, they are iffy at best. On those days, do a bungee loop to better hold the spare paddles.
Another vote for paddle britches, with maybe an extra loop of bungies around the shaft of each.
Always the front deck - first there are more runs of bungie to secure the things than in the back, second it something is starting to come loose you can see it before donating your paddle to the sea. Once a paddle gets truly loose in surf there is a good chance it’ll migrate down the beach and you will never see it again.
This is one of those questions where there is no right answer, but there are some observations I’ve made over time:
1 The front deck for a long skinny paddle is generally fine since the water is unlikely to find enough purchase to dislodge it. Larger blade paddles offer a lot of surface area and you don’t want your hull performance degraded should the blade escape or (worse) come only partially loose. I have paddled with a spare under the bungies, and never had a problem, but the straps on the back of the boat do offer much better storage. If I do keep a blade on the front, I put it under all the bungees available. The paddle has not been dislodged, even when playing in surf.
2 The back deck is fine. I’ve never lost a spare off the back deck and it doesn’t affect rolling up in that location. Stuff on the front deck can be annoying. I generally clean the deck before landing through surf. It is difficult to switch to your spare, however, and should the main paddle fail, it is difficult to obtain and assemble and not capsize. This is not a problem when it is on the front deck, so when paddling solo, I put the paddle in front.
3 I had to suppress a giggle where one poster said “in the rear compartment” as I’ve always had a bulkhead only a few inches behind my seat and the rear compartment in most of these boats was shorter or not designed to hold a spare. This may be practical for some. It is certainly difficult to access from the cockpit, however.
4 Placing the paddle with the blade as flat to the front deck as possible works best. Yeah, I thought this was pretty obvious and feel dumb mentioning it, but I saw someone with the blades of his spare sticking up nearly vertical and catching wind. It was surprising how much that impeded performance.
it happened to me