: I am nearing the end of stripping the deck of my Guillemot and have
: spent a little time building another paddle. It looks a bit like
: a GP but I'm sure the purists will tell me differently. It is
: 84" long almost 4" wide blades, and a 22" loom,
: although it has no shoulders so this is a notional length. It is
: a composite, mainly WRC with some ash and walnut accents and a
: walnut crescent tip to each blade, all glued with Titebond
: 111,the finished weight is 40oz, although I could probably do a
: little more blade thinning to reduce this. My only other paddles
: were euro style, which were varnished over epoxy. What do people
: suggest I should use as a finish on this one, and is the weight
: OK? I have spar varnish and can buy tung oil localy.
: The reason I don't think it is truly a GP is because it has one
: curved face and a one flat on each blade. What does that make
: it?
: I enjoyed the build and spent some time thinking! (Never a good
: sign!) Given the narrow and relatively small blade area, I can
: see the big attraction for all day touring, as perhaps the
: original GPs were used, since the pressure the blades can exert
: back into your shoulders must be relatively low. Surely it must
: therefore follow that it's outright power and efficiency it can
: never be as high as a well made euro or similar blade. If this
: were not the case, we might see GPs being used in sprint sports,
: which in my experience, isn't the case.

Two threads in this post. I'm sure lots of people will tell you traditional varnish- so:

I'll bet that you don't see touring paddles used in sprint sports any more than you see a kayak that's not a carbon honeycomb K1, so to say that a GP is not an adequate tool because it's not used in this arena is a bit fallacious.

You can argue all day about how paddles work, but the basic difference is that a Euro-type paddle with a leaf shape on the end is intended to work by presenting a large surface area perpendicular to the surface of the water, and a GP is intended to be used canted at an angle, and slicing through the water. A Europaddle blade is big and thin, and a GP is narrow and foil-shaped. A GP used with proper technique puts less stress on the shoulders because almost all of the propulsion comes from torso rotation. The other factors are less important, but include less leverage because the force is exerted over the length of the paddle instead of all of the surface area where the force is exerted being at the end of the paddle, which changes where the fulcrum is, and that the blade is much deeper in the water, which is a more ergonomic angle for the shoulder.

Most people who make their first GP make it too wide because they cant believe that it could possibly work if it weren't big, but then they will make a smaller one because their first doesn't allow a quick enough cadence to be efficient.

Cadence is also a difference. A Europaddle is like pedaling a bike in the highest gear possible, with your legs moving really slowly, and a GP is like using a lower gear and a faster tempo. If you use a weightlifting analogy, a Europaddle is like doing fewer reps with a heavy weight, and a GP is like doing more reps with a lighter weight. You're less likely to be injured with a lighter weight, and you'll be able to do a lot more reps with a lighter weight.

In the real world, there really isn't a performance difference between competent users of a GP and a EP, and a competent GP user will smoke a marginal EP user 10 out of 10 times.

m