: On Zimmerly's website, mentioned in my original question, the drawing is
: shown in Adobe Acrobat's .pdf format. There is an enlargement tool
: available on the toolbar, and by using it the paddle cross sections can be
: blown up big enough to actually see. Still, the question seems to be
: unresolved. Also, what about the apparent offset of the plane of the blade
: from the plane of the loom? It seems to me that if the tip trailed the
: loom there would be less tendency to flutter. The center of effort would
: thus be ahead of the center of resistance. Also, if the ridge were on the
: power face, there would be a dihedral that would reduce flutter.

Pete,

I too used the enlargement tool and that got me in "trouble", thinking along the exact lines you mention above. The really fun part of course was that these features, if real, are very modern, and not what a 20th century chauvinist would expect to find in a native design!

But of course the Aleut did not have television, shows, football games, or any other of our pastimes, so they had plenty of time to play with "what if " type of ideas concerning things that mattered in their life. Such as kayak and paddle design. So I'm not inclined to dismiss the possibility that any modern feature we westerners may come up with - apart from carbon fibers and such like - would not in fact have already been in use somewhere along the Arctic Rim.

Maybe the obvious confusion of the picture only reflects the fact that the person who drew it up was not aware of or did not expect to see these modern features in a native design, and thus simply did not understand the way the paddle would be used, and so got it wrong? I would not dismiss this possibility.

Mike certainly seems to make a strong case for this interpretation in his post.

risto