Bent Paddles

[houlibar]

What are the advantages of a bent paddle? Less fatigue?

I assume a bent paddle is not suited for every situation or else they would all be bent!

So what type of situation would a bent paddle be most ideal for?

Lastly, are they held so the blade is more perpendicular or more parallel to the surface of the water?

[pknoerr]

There are plenty of articles out there regarding bent paddles. The concept of a bent paddle is to increase the number of strokes, shorten the length of the stroke, make the stroke vertical through the stroke and ultimately to remove all correction strokes. When paddling with any paddle, the front portion of the stroke involves some pushing down on the water, and the back portion of the stroke involves pulling up on the water. This pushing down and pulling up is wasted power, and causes the canoe to porpoise (rise and fall). You get the best transfer of power while the stroke is perfectly vertical, and less water spills off the blade. Most bent paddles are built with a relatively small blade face. The size of the blade face determines the speed of the stroke. So with most bent paddles your stroke rate will increase, and shorten so that you concentrate your energy into only the portion of the stroke where the paddle is most vertical.

Anyways, using a bent paddle effectively can involve more cardiovascular fitness, as maintaining a higher stroke-rate is much like running faster. Each stroke involves less power, but the power is concentrated, and you get many more strokes in, and thus you can travel faster, and with less fatigue. This is evident in the marathon racers that can propel canoes at speeds up near 12mph on flatwater.

How does this translate to recreational canoeing… It depends. If you are likely to paddle long distances for many days on end, there is some benefit. You can complete your distance faster, and be less fatigued at the end of the day. But if you aren’t going to paddle at that high cadence, you probably won’t notice much of a difference, and the need to have better cardio may actually cause you to expend more energy than you normally do to attain the same speed.

Finally, there is a fair amount of technique involved. Getting as vertical a stroke as possible, and keeping your stroke reasonably short and positioned in sweet spot where it’s most vertical can involve alot of self evaluation. It’s probably not for everyone, but doing it well can result in traveling faster, with less fatigue.

PK

[OneBadApple]

😀 im a rookie so i cant answer for the reasons (bent shaft) i just bought a grey owl bent shaft marathon 54″for my first paddle cuz it looked cool and it makes me feel like i could pull a skier hehe hey every race canoe ive passed 😮 seems to be the style there using!?!? well theres were black appeared to be carbon not sure really we went by so fast
OBA

[pknoerr]

Yep, they are carbon. There are a few companies out there that build carbon paddles. The most popular is Zaveral Racing Equipment. The grand majority of racers these days are using ZRE paddles. ZRE offers several models of racing, outrigger, whitewater, and recreational carbon paddles. There are a small contingent of paddlers that are using LaVas paddles made in Quebec. There are a couple additional carbon paddle builders out there, but these manufacturers are building primarily for the rec flatwater tripping market.

PK

[houlibar]

Thanks for the excellent summary on bent paddles! I was wondering too, if being offset they had any tendency to want to twist in your hands to parallel the motion of the stroke. Like the way a propeller blade will feather to reduce aerodynamic drag.

[Preacher]

PK is wise in the ways of the paddle.

I use mine solo when punching into a steady wind. If I can find the line and don’t need too much of a correction in the stroke I can maintain a speed and direction much easier.

Personally I prefer the control of a straight paddle, but you can’t beat the power a bent shaft gives. One bowman absolutely loves the bent.

I have an old Grey Owl and never any problems with it wriggling in my hand. It also has an oval shaft, that might help.

[OneBadApple]

yes indeed preacher.. PK sounds very knowledgable and that reason alone is why i signed up at canoeing.com just gotta figure they’r would be fellow canoe junkies i could learn from….plus i aint gotta sort thru all that kayak krap!!!
OBA

[pknoerr]

@houlibar 178 wrote:

Thanks for the excellent summary on bent paddles! I was wondering too, if being offset they had any tendency to want to twist in your hands to parallel the motion of the stroke. Like the way a propeller blade will feather to reduce aerodynamic drag.

That tendancy to twist and spill water from the blade is often called flutter, because the paddle generally spills water off one side and then the other causeing the paddle to flutter when pulled on. This really isn’t a problem, because the paddle is bent towards the front, so the paddle blade ends up being pulled not pushed through the water. I’ve never had a problem with flutter on a correctly constructed bent paddle. But it’s all in the construction of the blade, so it’s best to try a paddle first to see if it paddles neutral.

PK

[houlibar]

Thanks pknoerr. I am getting the idea now too, that a bent paddle might not be practical for recreational canoeing with a flat bottom boat. Where paddling is often done in shallow water. Where short strokes are make through the lilies or the paddle gets abused by pushing off a sand bar.

[pknoerr]

Houlibar,

There are definitely some boats that work better with sit and switch technique whether with a bent of straight paddle, and I’ll hit that in a paragraph below. One is not mutually inclusive of the other, as you can sit and switch great with a straight paddle, and you can do corrections fine with a bent. As to the use of a bent paddle in shallow water, they work fine, infact, because most of the blade area on a bent paddle is concentrated low on the blade, I’d suspect they would work better, but they are usually fragile, so “poling” as many old timers do with long narrow blade ottertails and the such isn’t the best practice. But I often paddle shallow rivers and atleast when I’m tripping almost all I paddle with is a bent paddle. I agree when I’m running drops or playing in whitewater I use a durable straight shaft paddle.

I have noticed that certain hulls don’t leat themselves well to using a bent paddle. Obviously as the hull becomes more rockered more corrections are needed, so you end up switching sides too often. But even at 3-4 strokes on a side it’s not an issue. But there are some flatwater canoes where the bow rises slowly (ie: low rake) where getting the bow to pin between the bow wake doesn’t work well. It’s not totally determined on the amount of rocker either. In this case the bow doesn’t seem to track well because it doesn’t really want to pin, and the stern does, so the bow wants to constantly spin out rather than track. You miss your switch by one stroke and you spend 5 strokes getting it back on track again. Anyways, there are obviously boats that work better with bent paddles and others that work better with straight paddles. So before leaving on a canoe trip you pack the paddles that work best with the hull you are paddling.

PK

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