Saturday, March 3, 2012

different strokes for different folks

There are many different types of paddles for us to choose from, Wings, Euro, Greenland and now I am playing with the Aleutian paddle.
According to Wolfgang Brink`s article in Sea Kayaker magazine of Dec 2006, this paddle helped the original paddlers achieve speeds of 5 to 10 miles a hour while paddling for an entire day.
My interest came from reading Gnarlydog`s accounts of his use of this paddle and so I decided to try and make one
I managed to get a back issue of Sea Kayaker with the article in it and am using that for my instructions, but have found this picture for more inspiration.
I began by making a template of half the paddle and then drew the outline on my Cedar blank



 Next step was to cut out the entire shape and then refine the outline

 And then to begin carving out the paddle shape with the ridge in the middle.
Soon to be finished, its a nice way to spend the time between paddling sessions.

3 comments:

Silbs said...

I envy the skills you and Gnarly and my friend have. I can get a catheter into any coronary artery with a simple twist; but give me a board to make a Greenland stick, and I will give you shavings, sawdust and an unusable chunk of wood.

Unknown said...

Not everybody can get that catheter in, its an acquired skill, like the heading, different strokes.....

Lee said...

Nice work! havent tried one but think it's on the books!