C-Forum

I have used composite blade, composite shaft, metal, plastic and am currently using wood.

I find wood gives the best response, but am scared of it breaking.

I also prefer spooned shape than flat, and have quite a short shaft - how about the T-grip 'm' shaped, metal pole, wood top?

Need help all these options!

I do mainly creek boating, but would like to get into playboating - anyone suggest a good paddle?

Mitchell can build you what you want. I would not worry about wood breaking, because if the wood is carefully selected before glue-up, there is very little chance of a hidden fault. Carbon shafts are very strong, but local damage can result in sudden breakage. My preferred construction for curved paddle blades is a thin wood core covered with glass or carbon. I do not trust pure carbon or glass blades because if thin enough to keep the swing weight down, they are susceptible to breaking if caught momentarily in a crack in the river bottom.

At present, I use a wood shaft Clinch River paddle with a wood core, carbon faced curved blade for open canoe, and I use carbon shaft, wood-core curved blade for c-1.

HI

Since you are in the UK and have a lot options for a great paddle. look for one of the following.

The drakkar blade, new galasport carbon freestyle blade, or galasport c/k martikan millenium with straight or bet saft.

3m from gala is smoothest + lightest and drakkar is just the same blade with more river strenght so slightly heavier. if you like more freestyle style blade look for gales g-vac.

your dealer in UK can be found for drakkar website and gala dealer is the old nomad boys.

just my 2 cents,


marko

I currently use a Mitchell with wood shaft and carbon/FG (or glassfibre for you) blade. Definatly had tons of purchase and great flex. For creeking, it's awesome. So much power, so smooth. You only need half the strokes and can get by without the crossbow in some sketch situations because it has such a big blade face. I've destroyed this paddle once (in about 5 months) but they fixed it up all nice and I'm ready to go again. Only problem with this is that it would be time consuming/expensive to send it back from the UK. I havn't tried any of the Galasport or Drakkar or Robson paddles though. Heard good things about Robson...
will

Woody Custom Paddles makes fully custom paddles. They mainly make 2-blade paddles, but have made a few C-1 paddles.

http://www.woodycustompaddles.com