Folding Kayaks Forum

What do you think about using a Greenland style paddle for use with the Long Haul Mark 2? I use a 240 Werner Camano now and that translates to 95 or so inches and it seems most Greenland lengths are 84 in.

It's a bit beamy for a true Greenland paddle, but my girlfriend and I often use Werner's pseudo-Greenland "Arctic Wind," which has narrow Greenland style blades on a long shaft. In general I prefer narrow blades. Wide blades are better for river kayaking where you need to generate a lot of torque for a short amount of time. (Although it's worth noting that a long narrow blade can generate a lot of force when used with proper Greenlandic form.)

_________________
Michael Edelman
FoldingKayaks.org Webmaster

Greenland paddles don't have to be short, you just paddle with a slower cadence with a longer paddle. I have 87” and 96” GPs and use the latter exclusively for my 27“ wide Incept kayak. For my narrower kayaks my current favourite is my Tom Yost design 91” x 3" modified Aleut paddle. Instructions here http://www.yostwerks.com/GPIntro.html.
With its flat power face it's very powerful and efficient for its length and was very easy indeed to make as you don't need to shape the power face at all, so making it takes only half as much time time as a GP . Get a competent lumberyard to make the basic shape on a bandsaw and you can finish it with just a chisel, a good block plane and sandpaper in very little time. Start at 96” and you can easily make it shorter later.
Don't worry if it's not perfect; mine has transverse ridges near the tips where the lumberyard bandsaw operator did a bad job, grooves on the back due to my impatience/not sharpening the plane enough/going against the grain on occasions AND is slightly warped so the 2 power faces aren't parallel to each other. None of which seems to make any difference to the performance!

_________________
Simon

Feathercraft Wisper, First light 420, Fujita Alpina AL-1 400, Incept k40 (4sale),Nautiraid Narak 460, 416 & K1 (sold my 550), Pakboats Quest 135, TRAK 2.0
Wanted:original Advanced Elements Air Fusion
Cape Falcon F1. Beth, Hobie AI

You could have a paddle custom made to the length you want and they can be take-apart as well. We all seem to have personal ideas on paddles and their length, i like long paddles many say i am wrong, but i have tried shorter paddles on my Klepper aerius 2 which is similar in size to the Longhaul MK 2 and i go back to long. The paddle i favour is made by Nautiraid called "Eskimo" but Greenland paddles will be fine. The photo is the paddle blade of the nautiraid "Eskimo"