Hey gang,

Once again this year (out in Montana) our annual Peaks to Prairie spring race is rapidly approaching (April 27th, see link below if you are interested) and I have been asked to paddle for a team. So this whole discussion is around making a good paddle so that my wimpy old butt can keep up with the young guys.

I am tossing around some ideas for an "ultra-light" kayak paddle. I have been looking at some fancy carbon fiber paddles with hollow shafts, but they are about $400 and wouldn’t really look good with the Orca Kayak (sorry Nick – the Alutesque forms are just in the mail from CLC, maybe next year) I am going to be paddling.

My thought is I could take a Douglas Fir / Cedar / Douglas Fir lamination for the shaft. Then shape the shaft to a 1 1/4” x 1 1/8” oval and steam bend the ends into the cup for the blades. Then I could take cedar strips and make a nice design (similar to the fancy one in the back of Nick's book) with the strip ends sandwiched in between the Douglas Fir.

Then the whole thing could be shaped nicely and a layer of 6 oz. cloth on both sides of the blade and up the shaft about 2". The ends would be protected with some extra epoxy with wood flour.

It seems to me that this would be a really light paddle and would be adequately strong for the above mentioned river race and would be a good all around paddle.

What do you all think? I sure don’t want to break a paddle in the middle of a race.

Thanks,
Stephan