: Kris-- I was kind of looking at it the other way around. When Europeans got
: their hands on early kayaks and decided to try their hand at it as a
: sport, they seem to have gravitated away from the narrow-bladed paddles
: favored by native kayakers.

: I've traced the Euro paddle back as far as Hans Pawlata, who "reinvented
: the kayak roll using a feathered paddle" in 1927. So I'm curious when
: and how the wide blade and feathered paddle came to be preferred over the
: Greenland-style original equipment paddle.

: Mike

Hi Mike,
Herr Pawlata was a white water kayaker, like many at the time. A long slim blade would have been a disadvantage with shallow water. Paddles may have followed oars and sweeps in design depending on where they were used.

Oars and sweeps on sea boats tended to have long slim blades, easy on the body for long hours rowing. No problems with the sweeps hiting the ground, either.
Oars for rivers tended toward shorter wider blades, the shallower the river, the shorter and wider the blade.
There were also short, wide double-bladed paddles used with kayak/canoe-like boats on fens and wet marshes. They took up less width than oars and could be used either on one side like a canoe in very narrow channels, then used as a double-bladed paddle in wider channels. In drawings I've seen the blades weren't feathered, not really decessary in marshes and fens with the wind shelter fron the banks.
I think the drawings were dated in the early 1800's, and looked like they were done by archetects. The equivelant to a photo.
Unfortunately, I don't have the book they were in and can't recall the name, but it was an English, London publisher, a 1920's reprint.

It's possible that the Euro is indirectly descended from those designs.

Mike Savage
South West Cork