C-Forum

So....I was reading Jim Snyder's page whilst drooling over a new Jimistyx...not quite ready to spend $300 on a paddle, but it did lead me to wonder why we are all (or at least the majority of us are) using spoon faced paddles. Can anyone recomend a very quiet paddle? I have a Galasport, a Rough Stuff Savage C-1, and a glass Bandit. When I watch the paddle face they all seem to create a good deal of turbulence. What about the funky h2o design? Wouldn't a symmetrical paddle be better for freestyle?

I'm just going to say that you get value for every penny you pay for a Jimistix or other high end hand made stick.
Just my $.01!

You don't have to spend $300 for a good paddle, but if your boat is a car, then the stick is the tires. Don't expect Porsche performance with a retired raft paddle...

au contraire, not many of us use spoon faced blades... maybe your talking about a curved blade, kayaks use spoons....

the quietest paddle i know of, is one of the ZRE bent shafts... no noise, turbulence, or flutter

whats the difference between a curve and a spoon? the sides?

the zre looks nice, but it is a spoon correct?

Might be time for some clarifications - I use "spoon" and "curved" interchangeably when talking about canoe paddles and meaning curved in one direction. Never thought about a difference in the terms. What does "spoon" mean in paddle terms? A shallow bowl shape?

Didn't really think about kayak paddles - I know they also have "wing" paddles.

was reading something, somewhere, sometime....

and the article made a case that canoe paddles were not spoons (doesn't look like a teaspoon), but were curved in shape... not scooped out in the middle, but simply bent into a curve ... consequently i've always retained the difference...

just my idiosyncrasy, but thought the difference was noticeable... and did notice on Mitchell's website, their top of the line carbon paddle is referred to as being the 'Mitchell Curved Premier'

as for the ZRE blades they come both ways, however I'm not using mine on whitewater... although they do have a whitewater paddle, just haven't used and only seen one in person once

This one looks nice for 352$ lol
Id do it but I wouldn't tell the wifey
Love my waterstick, but they are outta biz. Carbon fiber is sick!

http://www.galasportpaddles.com/index.p ... 153&ct=cad

I've owned a couple of them. First its a custom made paddle, for you and your style of boating. If you want stiff it will be stiff, flexy, you get it. Grips and shaft are sized to your hand. Wood is easier on your joints. His sticks will hold up to quite a beating as I am pretty hard on paddles, yet my primary JS has gone five years with no problems (one good season and other paddles have been toast).

As far as a curved face, yes they do have more initial bite on the water, but the JS will pull quite hard, it just pulls harder in the second part of the stroke. When I started to use it it took me about one hour to adjust.

The ZRE is a nice paddle, but from the looks of it would hold up about 6 months for me in rocky streams - if I were lucky.

The hard part is taking that nice new paddle out on the water and scratching it!

Just put it on your xmas list!

I actually own a pretty nice Galasport that I picked up when I was working at USNWC. They had an employee sale at the end of the season and I got it at a fairly reasonable price. The retail on it wasn't what they list on the website, either. I think it was around $220 give or take. It has held up much better than my bandit.

Here is Jim Snyder's page that got me onto the idea:

http://www.jimisnyder.com/html/trik_talk.html

I'm interested in a non-spoon or non-curve paddle. Haven't quite settles into a length yet. Bandit is 56", Galasport 58" and Rough Stuff (w/sweet custom t-grip by Marc Evans) is 59". So it is even harder to drop $350 on a paddle. But maybe one day....

I always sized paddles by the length of the shaft, not the entire stick. My thinking was that it was the distance between your hands and the lower hand and the water that were important and didn't change much from paddle to paddle.
If I recall, all of mine were 36". You might look at this dimension with a paddle in your hand.
Oh, if you can get one, a Clinch River is a fine paddle and Backlund's are great, too.
Bill

billhay4, you are right that the shaft length is more important than the total length, yet if blades are very different in length and width, then one is likely to find that one needs a different shaft length. It depends on how far down the center of pressure is of each blade.

I got badly fooled on this when I made two paddles with the same shaft length. One had a longer, narrower blade, and felt OK in the water, very much like my commercial paddles. The other paddle had a short, wide blade, and in use, it felt way too short even with the same shaft length.

ezwater is right. I forgot to add that I always figured total length of a stick based on the blade shape and length, but the most important dimension to me is the shaft length.
Thanks for the correction to my poorly wording.
Bill

There is a freestyle canoeing (flatwater) out there that suggests similar - size the shaft separately and that, essentially, based on your torso length. The techique suggested is to sit straight in a chair with the t-grip on the seat in your crotch with the shaft at your nose - the shaft should come to about your forehead. Seems reasonable as many other approaches.

..love my Echo Creekstick...but would like to see some with slightly less curve. I've never inquired about this custom work..?
*In the outfitting process!...the Taureau should sail by early next week.
*Love your alternative to the CamelBack for tastier liquids Craig!!...ROTFL..

$.01,
SteveD