: I'm just getting into making Greenland paddles after a friend loaned, and
: subsequently gave me, his spare GP, which my wife promptly tried and
: claimed as her own. My first attempt turned out reasonably well - used it
: for a 15 km. run, and was reasonably pleased with it. The latest one, tho,
: isn't nearly as good - it 'wobbles' a lot, and you can see a lot of
: cavitation around the blade tip as it moves underwater. It also, strangely
: enough, actually squeaks as it moves thru the stroke! I've since thinned
: down the blade tip a lot, and taken some bulk out of the blades themselves
: - if anyone has any other suggestions for improvement, they'd be much
: appreciated!

Hi vk,
Try holding the paddle so that the blade is tipped forward (canted forward( at the upper edge. Each GP seems to have an angle range (cant) where they work very well. The flutter is caused by the waterflow across the blade switching from edge to edge when the paddle face is perpendicular to the blade path. Canting the blade makes the waterflow to go in a single direction on the blade.

It doesn't take much of a cant angle to eliminate flutter to the greatest degree.

That cavitation you see is actually ventilation tracking down along the blade edge and off the tip. I get this if I apply too much force to a stroke at the beginning. If you try varying the power applied to the paddle, light at the start, strong in the middle and eased off at the end of the stroke, that should eliminate ventilation.

That singing or squeak makes a good indicator that I haven't got the cant angle and stroke force a bit wrong.

Mike Savage
South West Cork