I have a video by Doug VanDoren, one of the narrow-bladed gurus here in Michigan. He says that the paddle should enter the water straight down, no angle (straight, no chaser ;-) On the other hand, I've read of a young Greenlander guy by the name of Maligiaq Padilla (sp?) who's been the Greenland-paddling champ 2 years running, and he advocates about a 40-degree-from-vertical paddle position. I read about him on the web, but have not yet bought his video, which you can find an ad for in the back of kayaking magazines (at least here in the US.) There is an article about him in the current issue of Sea Kayaker magazine.

It should probably be noted that Doug uses a Betsie Bay Kayak narrow paddle, which has a rectangular shaft and is not conducive to angling the blade without angling the wrist, which is not ergonomic. I use one of Eric Schade's paddles, which has a round shaft with blades that your outer 2 fingers wrap over slightly at the paddle's loom. Putting the blade edge in the finger/palm joint automatically angles the blade a bit.

I adopted a slightly-angled position, but not quite as angled as Maligiaq. Angling the paddle helps 'catch' the water better as it enters, making less splash, and it exits more cleanly. In fact, when the paddle is angled, it doesn't need to be lifted out, just starting to bring the paddle foreward a bit raises it to the surface. As far as efficency in the power part of the stroke is concerned, the vertical blade should be better, but a slight angle does not reduce the amount of frontal area of the blade much. I don't know which method creates more of a 'vortex' or slight 'eddies' in the water. For what it's worth, I think my stroke is cleaner with the paddle angled, and this probably does more to improve my efficiency by not splashing or mis-catching the water than any efficiency that might be lost due to the slight angle.

Dean