: I'd like to make one so I can carry a spare on the rear deck. Maybe a
: storm paddle is the only good solution, but I wanted to ask.

Jim,

I prefer a storm paddle for a spare. I would not want the challenge of having to assemble two halves of a take-apart, during violent weather, after my primary paddle had broken. That said, I used a two-piece Betsie Bay Greenlander for a number of years for travelling. A two-piece is wonderful as you no longer have to haul your paddle through airports in a 4" PVC tube (and pray that it doesn't rain when you hire a taxi and stick the tube diagonally in the car, out the open passenger's side window).

I'm still waiting for Superior Kayaks to produce a two-piece (a carbon two-piece would be a great travelling paddle), or I may buy the Feathercraft ferrule and adapt it to my homemade cedar paddles.

I haven't used the Feathercraft two-piece, but the ferrule looks pretty solid. The challenge is that you need a strong joint, but the hardware cannot protrude too much from the shaft, or it will inhibit shifting your hands on the paddle, so important to Greenland paddle usage.

Off topic rambling ... Maligiaq Padilla broke my Betsie-Bay take-apart while in Florida (the glass ferrule broke clean-through at its base). In all fairness to BBK, it is possible that Maligiaq had not seated the paddle halves correctly. He raced with it in Miami on a surfski (and won), and later broke it while performing a roll demo. He handed it back to me with no comment. I later learned, that in Greenland, if you loan something to someone and it breaks, the borrower carries no responsibility. Had he borrowed it without my knowledge or consent, and it had broken, he would have been obliged to place/fix/pay for it.

Greg Stamer