: Daughter: ~4' tall, 55 pounds. Boat beam unknown but max 24" (CLC Ches
: 14). I'm thinking about making her paddle more like a 175 or so. Is this
: going to be a reasonable size for her? I want it to be long enough for a
: boat of the Chesapeake's size but still short enough for her to handle it
: easily. I am also considering an SOF for her with a substantially smaller
: beam.

: Thanks for any suggestions or comments

Build the boat first. You don;t have to have it glassed and varnished, but it should at least be stitched together and have a cockpit cutout.

Head to the local lumberyard and pick up a 1x2 firring strip. this should cost you less than $2.

Place your daughter in the kayak, hand her the 1x2, and see how she does with an 8 foot "paddle". She will automatically balance the stick, by grabbing it near the middle. Ask her to attempt to paddle (yeah, I know, she is on dry land) an keep an eye on the angle of the board where it hits the ground, and also look at how far away from the boat the stick is.

If she is very low in the bottom of a high boat, she may have trouble hitting the water (even with an 8 foot pole). You don't want her hitting the boat with each stoke, nor do you want her rocking and tipping so she an get the paddle in the water.

Cut the 1x2 down to 6 feet -- a quick job with a handsaw--and give it back to her. If she can "paddle with that, then cut off another foot. Work your way down to where the paddle hits the ground but not the boat. Whatever length you have is going to be your loom length.

When you add on the paddle blades, with a length and width which are appropriate to the strength of your daughter, you'll get the correct paddle length. The shape of the paddel blade can cause this to vary greatly! A long narrow blade (2 inches wide and 18 inches long) which has an area of 36 square inches is going to give about the same amount of resistance as a 6-inch-square blade (also 36 inches in area), but the difference in overall length of paddles with such diverse blade shapes would be a whopping 2 feet!

Try for as light a paddle as possible. The weight tires young paddlers more than the paddling effort. And keep the paddle long enough so that they don't hit the boat. If you go for carving a greenland paddle your daughter can help out with building it -- and she should certainly be allowed to decorate it as she sees fit.

Just some thoughts

PGJ