Standup Paddling Paddles (Single Blade)
A standup paddling board surfer asked me whether he could use his single blade, extra long standup paddle-surfing paddle for paddling a W Kayak. -Standup padding surf boards is becoming trendy in the board surfing community, and I find this question to be interesting.
Surfers’ paddles are single bladed and look like extremely long canoe paddles. They are usually made several inches longer than the paddle-surfer himself, and would work well for standup paddling a W Kayak. However, using such a long paddle would be uncomfortable in the lower W positions, which are riding (mounted), sitting and kneeling.
The picture below shows me demonstrating standup paddling in a W kayak using a single blade paddle made from one part of a Mohawk two-pieces double blade paddle equipped with the T-grip extension handle.
These single blade canoe paddles (or shortish standup paddle surfing paddles, if you prefer…) are 5′ 3″ or 5′ 1″ long, which makes them slightly longer than regular canoe paddles are. They are good enough for standup paddling - unless you’re exceptionally tall (I’m 6′). However, since these paddles are shorter than the surfers’ standup paddles they also work very well for the lower paddling positions, that is as a regular ‘canoeing’ paddles, which is what they were basically designed for.
Yoav
Tags: , kayak, paddle, standup paddling, surfing
May 16th, 2008 at
I want to buy a standup paddleboard paddle that has blades on both ends. The video on standup paddling is exactly what I want to do. In standup surfing, and one bladed paddle is all that is available and they are very difficult to use and keep changing the side a person paddles from. Do you know where a longer, standard kayak paddle can be purchased?
May 17th, 2008 at
Hi Ken,
You’ll be able to purchase a 10′ and 11′ long double blade canoe paddle from us within a few weeks. It will have a 1.125″ diameter aluminum shaft, and come in 3 pieces.
The fact it would come in 3 pieces would enable us to ship it at a reasonable cost. Otherwise, shipping paddles that are over 8′ long is too expensive.
You can already buy a 9′ long, 2 pieces double blade paddle from us (the Mohawk paddle), but 9′ wouldn’t be long enough for you since paddling standing on a board requires a longer paddle than paddling standing on the bottom of the W kayak hulls does.
Yoav