Two New Paddles

One good thing came out of my losing my favorite QB paddle (I left it on the beach at Kanaha in one of my classic ADD moves) is I got two more that i really love. I bought one of the 8″ QB’s and I absolutely love the thing. It’s remarkable how good this paddle feels in either surfing or distance paddling. I cut it to 82″, I kind of wish it was 84″, but it’s great so I shouldn’t whine. You might be surprised that such a big moose likes such a little paddle. All i can say is try one–bigger isn’t necessarily better.

Jimmy Lewis also gave me a Kanaha version of his paddle. It’s the nine inch QB blade, and it’s amazing with the JL flexi fiberglass shaft. I asked Jimmy today why he decided to make such a flexible paddle and he said “I just wanted to try something different. Everyone else was doing stiff carbon fibre, I wanted to try something else”.

Given that it was just a try, i’d say he really hit on something. It takes a while to get it to work, but once you get the cadence right you get a little flick at the end of your stroke. It’s not like the same shaft with the Peahi blade, where you get a longer push. With the Kanaha blade you get a pronounced “flick” feeling near the end of the stroke, like a little burst of acceleration. Of course you pay for that with a little hesitation at the beginning of the stroke as you load the shaft.

I found myself tuning my stroke to optimize the flick. You have to stroke pretty fast to feel it–short strokes that end just before your toe. As you stop pulling to push down the top of the paddle and lever the blade out it gives an extra push. I can’t really describe it, but it felt really good.

I’ll add pictures shortly.