Measure Twice, Cut Once

For better or worse, we humans adapt to the equipment we use. In Stand Up Paddle Surfing and Racing, our stroke adapts to the paddle we have. If your paddle shaft is too short your blade will be hitting the board when you pull on it during the catch (the first part of the stroke, when the paddle blade is first stabbed into the water and you start to pull). If you do a full reach the blade will have to be off to the side to keep from scraping along the rail, and the board will turn away from the stroke. To compensate you might so something like a draw stroke–which weakens your stroke. Or you might lean way over and shorten up the reach to get the blade under the board–which weakens your stroke and makes it inefficient.

Whatever you do, your body and mind will optimize and tune that compensation until it’s pretty good, which translates into a bad habit that’s hard to fix. I’ve seen that firsthand in learning the Tahitian stroke. All those years of paddling with whatever stroke came to mind have deeply rooted a host of bad habits.

The bottom line of all of this is that the wrong length paddle can fill your paddling repertoire with bad habits that are tough to correct. Getting a paddle that is the right length for your stroke, board, and experience can be very uncomfortable for awhile. This article is about getting the paddle length right.

Carles Carrera recently published an excellent article in his blog about measuring the paddle length that best suits you: http://www.carlescarrera.com/2010/04/definitive-guide-for-choosing-your-sup.html. Carles is a guy after my own heart, Stand Up Paddle Surfing fanatic and a motorcycle nut, with an engineering bent. He went about his analysis in a time honored fashion–he built a table of all the recommended methods of determining paddle length using his height as the standard.

I’m going to add some new information to the methods used to determine paddle length at the end of this article, as well as some tips on what to do when you cut your paddle too short, as many so people do.

Here’s a synopsis of the methods that yield the table:
Starboard: flip the paddle upside down, rest the handle on the ground, and where the paddle blade starts to spread from the paddle shaft it should be about eye level.

With the Starboard method this paddle shaft is already two inches too long. Surf Hull SUP Division T shirt courtesy of Dino Funari–Thanks Dino

Quickblade: add 8 inches to your overall height for surfing, and 9 inches more for racing/paddling.

Kialoa: add 6-8” for surfing and 10-12” for racing.

The blade of the Quickblade Elite pictured above is 16.5 inches long–so this paddle is about 16″ above my head. Much to long by either Kialoa or Quickblade recommendations.

Laird Hamilton: “Your paddle should be as tall as the reach above your head. If it’s too short you will be reaching forward – if it’s too big you will be reaching too far back. Tip: Raise your arms up as if you were doing a pull up and that should be the height of your paddle.”
David Kalama: recommends the same method as Laird Hamilton.

This paddle is exactly the right length according to the Laird Hamilton/Dave Kalama method

Patrice Guenole, of GongSUP: Provides a chart combining board size and SUPer height.
Ke Nalu: Measure the paddle based on having your fist at the same level as your shoulder with the blade under the board and the paddle shaft straight down from your extended arms. You can even go a little shorter than that, with your hand down an inch or so below the level of your shoulder. Have your helper measure the distance from your hand to the bottom of the rail of your board. You want the beginning of the upper curve of the paddle to be right at the rail. Mark the point on the shaft to be cut by measuring the distance your helper got (from the bottom of the rail to your fist) from the upper curve of the paddle blade” … For racing: “…generally add 6 to 10 inches to the length of the paddle over a similar surfing paddle.” Following this method I arrived at a paddle length of 78 inches or 198cm for Surfing and 84-88 inches or 213-224 cm for Racing.

For surfing, with a shoulder-height upper arm, this paddle length is about perfect. The blade is under the board with a comfortable reach. But this board is a Foote Maliko 14 distance board which positions me nearly two inches higher than on my Foote surfboard. With my surfboard the paddle would be too long

Marco, from Standupaddling: Add 5,9 inches or 15 cm for Surfing and 8,3 inches or 21 cm for Cruising.
Eric, from SUP France: Add 7,9 inches or 20cm for Surfing and 11,8 inches or 30 cm for Racing.

For the table calculations Carles used his height: 176cm=69.3”

Here’s a shortened version of Carles analysis:

All the methods that do not take into account the paddle blade length (Quickblade, Kialoa, Laid Hamilton, David Kalama, Patrice Guenole, Marco and Eric) are not precise enough, because the overall paddle length is greatly influenced by blade length which varies from 16” to 20”. Laird Hamilton and David Kalama are wrong? Yes I think so as well. I’m sure their method works well for them, because both Laird and David are very powerful paddlers and use big and long blades, but if you use a normal or short blade (16-17 inches), you’ll end up with a paddle mast 3-4 inches too long. Patrice Guenole method gives me also too short paddle lengths.

So only Starboard’s method and Bill Babcock’s remain on the list.

The Starboard’s method takes into account the blade length, or best said gets the blade out of the equation, but I used it and feel my 81,7 inches, 207 cm paddle too long.

Bill’s method sounds a common sense one, and the measures for Surfing, 78” or 198cm is what I feel should be my next paddle length. And if you consider my blade length is quite long, is aligned with Quickblade, Kialoa and Eric’s method. On the other hand, the 84-88 inches or 213-224 cm length dimensions for Racing, are huuuuge, and doesn’t work for me, specially when trying to apply the Tahitian stroke.

Carles Conclusion:
My method will be Bill’s one for Surfing: “… measure the paddle based on having your fist at the same level as your shoulder with the blade under the board and the paddle shaft straight down from your extended arms. You can even go a little shorter than that, with your hand down an inch or so below the level of your shoulder. Have your helper measure the distance from your hand to the bottom of the rail of your board. You want the beginning of the upper curve of the paddle to be right at the rail. Mark the point on the shaft to be cut by measuring the distance your helper got (from the bottom of the rail to your fist) from the upper curve of the paddle blade.”

For Racing, my method will be … the same. I’m sorry paddle manufacturers, but unless it proves I’m really wrong in the following months, I’ll use the same paddle for Surfing than for Racing.
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Surfing vs. Racing
So while I appreciate the vote of confidence, I don’t support Carles conclusion. The surfing vs Racing/downwinding issue comes down how thick your downwind board is vs. your surf boards, the kind of stroke you do, and how disciplined you are at doing the stroke correctly and reaching for your paddle grab. What you are likely to find is that as your racing stroke improves, you will need a longer paddle. It’s not true in every case, but it’s common. Here’s why.

As your stroke improves you start reaching further forward on the catch. You do so with a variety of techniques–lower arm extension, shoulder rotation, torso rotation, and shoulder stacking. Of these four techniques two of them–shoulder rotation and shoulder stacking–require a longer paddle to accommodate the improvements in the stroke and still get the blade fully inserted at the catch.

The solution is to measure your paddle on your board, stretching for your target reach in as good a form as you can manage. If you haven’t already marked your race/distance board to give you a reach target, you should start with that. You can do all this in the water, but I’ve found it infinitely easier to get my helper (Diane) to cooperate on dry land with my board propped on a cooler (under my feet) and a bucket at the nose. This gives me plenty of room to get the paddle in the proper position.

Reach target. Not very visible in this photo, but the black mark on the board bottom is slightly forward of it and give a good reference.

Stand at your usual balance point on the board. Give as long a reach as you can manage comfortably. Mark that and transfer the mark to the other side with a straightedge. Now mark three and six inches further. The six inch mark is your target. See Dave Kalama’s article on Catch for more information about getting a proper reach.

Moderate shoulder stack, paddle well vertical, good reach. The paddle shaft is six inches too short to get the blade under the board at the catch

Now stand in your paddling position and do the best reach you can manage in the best position for your chosen stroke. If you’re working on a Tahitian stroke that means lower arm fully extended, torso and shoulder rotated, shoulders stacked as much as possible to get the paddle vertical. Have your helper mark where the paddle intersects the edge of the board. It will probably be somewhere on the blade, unfortunately. The distance between the tape mark and the neck of the blade is how much more shaft length you need. It will seem like a ridiculous length.

Stacked shoulders and vertical paddle reaching to the point the paddle blade is under the board–well short of a good reach. Note how cramped up the position is. It’s hard to get power into the catch without doing a full torso and shoulder rotation. It’s not just that the big muscles aren’t engaged, even the arm and shoulder muscles aren’t at their best position.

Serious reach–shoulder and torso rotation, bending at the hips, snapping the paddle forward, stacked shoulders. paddle vertical–the paddle is six inches too short. You can see the difference in power available in this position. There’s added leverage for every muscle involved. Dave Kalama calls this an “opened” position as in “Open your shoulders, open your torso!! Reach!” I never understood why until I saw this picture.

You will probably have to reach a compromise on paddle length. If you are learning a Tahitian stroke, an important element is lifting the paddle out of the water like drawing a sword from a scabbard, without winging the upper hand downwards. If your paddle is too long you may have a problem clearing the blade. The best approach is to cut the paddle the full length you expect to need, and then see how it affects your stroke recovery. If it pushes your upper arm too high, then you may have to shorten the shaft some. Don’t immediately take action though, live with the too-long paddle for a couple of runs to see if you can adapt to it. You may find that relaxing your upper arm more and pushing up with the lower arm can give you the clearance you need.

While you are at it, put your surfboard on the cooler and measure your paddle for it. For surfing you want a comfortable reach with your upper arm straight out–parallel to the board. Again have your helper mark where the paddle intersects the edge of the board. Surfboards are generally an inch or two thinner than racing boards. That, combined with a more relaxed reach usually yields a shorter paddle.

One other reason for a separate surf and race paddle is the construction of the paddle. Your surf paddle has to withstand abuse. The first time you stretch your paddle behind you, lean hard on the shaft, swing your feet in a hard top turn or cutback and then fall on the shaft it better be stout or it will be a two piece. I’ve sat on my paddle in this situation more than once, and I have the broken bits to prove it. If it were a super light prepreg $400 racing paddle it wouldn’t survive the first attempt. I’ve watched Chris Padillo and Junya McGurn turn stout paddles into a two piece just going hard for a wave. Too much motor. Not a problem I have to worry about. But the point remains, your surf paddle needs to be a lot stronger and therefore likely heavier than your race paddle.

Stretching Your Paddle
So you already cut your fine racing tool a bit too short. No worries. Fortunately the top of the paddle shaft is lightly loaded and the weight isn’t as important as the blade end. You can stretch the paddle with either a handle that has an extended shaft or a ferrule. Hopefully you saved the bits you cut off–who throws pieces of carbon fiber tubing away? But if you didn’t the store you bought it from probably had a box of bits behind the counter. Maybe they even have a ferrule or two kicking around.

A ferrule is just a piece of thick wall fiberglass (or rarely, carbon fiber) shaft that has been machined to fit inside your paddle shaft.

First, get your handle off. A heat gun should do this easily, even if you used epoxy. The melting point for epoxy is usually lower than your handle unless your handle is ABS. A hairdryer will work as a heat gun, especially if you block off part of the air inlet. Play the heat onto the shaft, not the handle, get it warm and try pulling off the handle. Keep heating until you can feel movement, then twist and pull and off it comes. Let everything cool down, dress the handle with a bit of fine sandpaper to get off any epoxy ridges, and test pushing it into the scrap of shaft material. Test fit your ferrule into the shaft, then slide the shaft material onto the other end of the ferrule. Sand anything that hangs up and get it all fitting nicely. Once you have everything pre-fit, glue the ferrule into the shaft and the handle scrap onto the ferrule. Let everything set up. Now measure the length you want to add, and wrap a couple of turns of masking tape right at the line. This will give you a very straight and concentric line to cut on. Use a fine tooth hacksaw to cut the shaft, watching both sides of the blade to ensure the cut is square. Dress up the cut and remve sharp edges with a bit of sandpaper. Test fit your handle, mark a line to show you when the handle is straight and glue it on. Get everything aligned and give it a wrap of tape to hold everything still while it sets up. Done.