: Rob,

: Thanks for explaining the logic behind the interpretation. I am not at all
: surprised to read that after testing you have eliminated the step from
: your paddles. But have you kept the cross cut at the transition onto the
: blade?

: It is this 2nd cross cut that intrigues me: the shape is a "D" and
: if the flat is held against the palm of the hand (with just thumb and one
: finger on loom) then the blade will assume a rather strong tilt; it may
: still work, and not dive. This would have the flat as the power face.

: If on the other hand the round side of the "D" is held in the palm,
: then no tilt is necessary but with the fingertips on the flat any tilt
: could be assumed, or none at all, which would be natural for a
: "dihedral" type power face.

: This latter grip seems conceivable as well. All in all it is that series of
: cross cuts (with the cross hairs) that puzzles me: are they really as
: shown in the picture. Why the odd step that you have eliminated: if the
: loom fits the hand then running the same straight into the blade would be
: no problem, and would give a stronger transition.

: Has this paddle been drawn up by David from his own observations, or has he
: taken it from some document and combined the two: kayak from st
: Petersburg, paddle from Washington? In any case it seems clear that you
: have taken this picture as a starting point only, and have created an
: independent design that may well be quite superior to the original, eg. in
: strength.

: Too bad the Smithsonian hardly allows any field testing of its artefacts.

: risto

If your meaning of “cross cut” is the protruding shoulders illustrated in David’s drawing, then yes, I include these in my interpretation of this paddle.

There are more than a few puzzling features of this VERY SMALL drawing of the Aleut paddle on page 16 of David’s book. Actually there is a slightly larger version on page 73 of the earlier edition I own of David’s book “Qajaq.”

If I examine the cross sections verses the overhead and profile views the question arises, is this intended to be an accurate scaled drawing? I think not. If you look at the section presented at the transition of the blade and loom, this section has both the width of the blade shoulders and depth of the loom shown, but a straight line drawn down following the drawings would not show the loom depth. Further confusion occurs with the next section at about 180mm. This section is thicker than the bottom blade profile allows. Furthermore, the line through the section indicating the blade edges rises up, above the level of the blade edges indicated in the other two sections provided.

Is the loom cross section an oval or an egg shape? Close examination revels it is not an oval. Is it really meant to be and egg shape? If it is, I assume the desired natural comfortable placement in the hand would be with the large end of the egg in the palm with the knuckle wrapped around the small end of the egg shape. If in fact this is the true shape of this section it would also make the flat blade face the power face.

On my first attempts at this paddle style I had the flat surface of the D aligned with the flat blade surface as indicated in the drawing. What I found was that the shoulders at the blade/loom transition really hit my fingers very hard which made me want to round the shoulders considerably for comfort. Again, with the surveyed drawing so small, it is hard to tell how sharp or rounded this feature is. I felt that I had to round the shoulders too much to make them comfortable. I thought that if they were sharper, the shoulders would create a natural drip edge for water running down the blades.

What I did was to reverse the D so the round part was in the palm facing the flat blade surface. This solved a number of problems. First this position offsets the shoulders at the blade/loom transition so they no longer were in the way as I slid my hand out to the blades. This allowed me to make the shoulders sharper, so they do act as a drip edge. Also by reversing the D shape the blade edges start at the top of the loom (relative to Zimmerly’s drawings) and angle down, right through the middle section (which now works) as the blade edges run down to the blade tips. This feels very comfortable to use and works well with fairly sharp blade shoulders.

Again, the drawings we’re looking at are so small 1/64” or less on the drawing equals almost 1/2” in full scale.

Who knows what condition the native kayaks and paddles are in relative to when the were made. I don’t know how David surveyed this paddle. I assume he is very accurate. It would certainly be nice to see and handle the actual paddle.

I use the native kayaks and paddle drawing as a source of inspiration. I don’t assume to know how they used them. I think in the end, the artifacts we are aware of represent a small sampling of the possible individual boats and paddles that may have been in use. Just as each of us make our own personal modifications to a design with every boat we build

I’ve been using my interpretation of this Aleut design for the last six years and have been very happy with it.

The bottom line is, "are you having fun?"

All the best,

Rob Macks
Laughing Loon CC&K
www.LaughingLoon.com