: Well, my daughter had her first unexpected capsize in her Sea Flea.
: Fortunately just a week prior, we had practiced a capsize + wet
: exit (no skirt, but still needs to get feet out + swim away).
: She did spectacular - kept a death grip on her paddle the entire
: time and only had big eyes, but no panicking. My buddy emptied
: her boat in no time flat and she was back in after a quick post
: mortem + reassurances.

: I give 90% or more credit to the paddle. It's a Bending Branches
: Cattail. It's a kid-specific paddle, but it's still obnoxiously
: long for her. Kids tend to get the paddle vertical at the side
: of the boat and then it pulls them down. I've watched kid after
: kid do it - usually their floppy-ness keeps them out of the
: water.

: SO... I've been mulling it for a while. And I have Bryan N's book
: on carving a GP. Because this is my first try - I'd like to pull
: this off as cheaply as possible. So - what wood could I get for
: this?

: And, what's the bare minimum tools-wise to be able to do this
: realistically? My dad has a band saw that I can cut the blank
: down with. However, I don't own a block plane or spokeshave or
: draw knife (though, the spokeshave & draw knives scare me
: just looking at them).

: Thoughts? Opinions? Witty commentary (yeah- I know, RTFM)?

: -Doug

Hi Doug,

Around here at least Menards has a sizeable collection of poor quality western red cedar, used for decks and other outside projects. If you take your time to sort thru the piles, restack them and they won't care, you can find nice clear straight grain 2x4's cheap, usually about $5. Makes a pretty cheap and pretty nice paddle. Wear gloves btw, or you'll end up with a ton of splinters. Like everyone's said, a cheap block plain, the basic model Stanley is usually less than $20 and some sand paper (ok alot of sand paper) and a bit of tong oil and you've got a really nice paddle.

Bill H.