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KBBS Archive 00,000
Re: paddle sizing (shaft length)
Posted By: Nick Schade In Response To: paddle sizing (shaft length) (Paul Stomski)
Date: Friday, 14 August 1998, at 2:27 p.m.
The problem with any sizing rule is it is going to be limited to certain characteristics. Saying a paddle should should have a reach from your feet to your upstretched hand does not take into account peoples varying proportions or the varying proportions of blades. Shaft length can not be seperated from blade length. Overall length is the combination of blade length and shaft length and is not very informative. The right paddle for someone with long narrow blades will not be the same length as the right paddle with short, wide blades.
The Greenland style presumably has a rule for blade length, but if a european body is proportioned differently than an Inuit's how does the formula translate?
Seat height, boat width, blade shape, paddling style will all effect what is the correct length paddle. I imagine you might be able to craft a formula that would account for all aspects and squirt out a numerical length, but I don't know of one now.
Choice of a paddle currently is not something that can be determined on land. You need to get in a boat, have a wide selection of paddles on the dock and try them out. Or, get a paddle, swap with your friends, if you like your friend's better, keep it and never paddle with him again.
> What the heck should your leg length have to do with the size
> of a paddle?!?! It should be a function of your sitting body height,
> boat beam, sitting elevation relative to the water line, and personal
> preferences.> I am in the process of deciding on a paddle myself and I think
> that the shaft portion should be measured separately from the shaft/blade
> combination.
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KBBS Archive 00,000 is maintained by Nick Schade - Guillemot Kayaks with WebBBS 5.12.
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