> Any thoughts on the longer paddles of the ancients?

> I know that they went out to 20ft, and had a pivot mount on the kayak, so
> you didn't have to hold up its weight.

Sounds more like oars, or a balancing pole for a tightrope walker. I've seen a picture of a rig like this--the paddle mounted on a post in front of the paddler, roughly at chest height, with a pivot device so it can move, but not get lost. Seemed like a toy.

> These seem almost to be poles! Which, jokingly, might be what I need on
> some of the shallow lakes around here. :)

So make or buy a pole! A closet rod is a great (literally) `off the rack` pole. ( do I hear groans from that pun?)

> BTW What can you do to harden the tip? for pushoffs, the occational rock
> ...

Gil Gilpatrick has a few ideas in his book on strip building canoes. For poles he suggests having a large copper or brass ring made which is slightly smaller on the inside diameter than the pole's outside diameter. Sand, scrape or plane the end of the pole to a taper over the last two inches so that you can get the ring on, and bash it on as far as it can go. The ring helps control splitting of the wood at the end of the pole. For paddles ( these are canoe paddles in the book) he suggests using epoxy resin on a length of nylon rope. Us a few dabs of masking tape to hold the rope so that it follows the edge of the blade and extneds up a few inches. Cover the rope with resin and let it set. When the resin is hard, sand it smooth and taper the ends of the rope into the shape of the blade. The nylon rope should go translucent, just like the fiberglass cloth appears clear when saturated with resin. You can also go over the end of the blade (with or without rope) with a layer or two of glass cloth and resin. Similarly, I have seen lengths of copper wire (solid, probably 12 or 10 gauge) glued onto the ends of paddles (probably with epoxy resin) as reinforcement and protection. Paul Jacobson