Double blade paddle . . . worth it?

I'm quite sure of the reason for most/many people.....the price!

A reasonably nice wood paddle can be had here for CA$75 - CA$125
An all carbon paddle starts at about CA$300

For the rest they simply don't know what they are missing!

And then there are the "traditionalists" while they might paddle a "plastic" boat they would insist on a traditional wood paddle.

recped said:

I'm quite sure of the reason for most/many people.....the price!

A reasonably nice wood paddle can be had here for CA$75 - CA$125...

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You won't find a $125 paddle that weighs 10 oz.

It is true that carbon paddles are generally more expensive, but a high end wood paddle can approach the cost of a carbon paddle. I have noticed, though, that the price difference between a top name carbon paddle and a quality wood paddle is widening, which is unfortunate. On the other hand, I don't know of anyone that's making a nice carbon paddle for freestyle anyway.

When the question is straight shaft wood or bent shaft carbon I couldn't help but tease when my personal favorite is straight shaft carbon.

My best straight carbon paddles are no longer made...including the Black Bart Troublemaker and Moore Cue. ZRE also sold a true symmetric mini-beavertail blade (with asymmetric grip) for a short time in the 1990's. I like a symmetric grip too and modified a Bending Branches carbon shaft paddle so it's now fully symmetric. My Troublemaker and Cue are not super light (15-17 oz) but their balance is exceptional so they feel lighter than they are, and the blades are quieter and cleaner than any wood paddle I've used except a Quimby. They are also very strong for their weight

Regarding cost I think the top freestyle paddle on the market is the $700 wood Quimby. The last carbon paddle I bought was a six degree GRB bent blem for $175. I have a friend that finds used carbon paddles bargains often.

But I'm not making any recommendations. I know more canoe paddlers that insist on wood vs carbon. I appreciate a good wood paddle too. I think folks should use whatever paddling gear that makes them happy.

gumpus said:

My best straight carbon paddles are no longer made...including the Black Bart Troublemaker and Moore Cue.

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I saw the photos of the Moore Cue and you can see the workmanship that went into that paddle. I was just reviewing past threads regarding carbon straight-shaft paddles here at Canoetripping.net and Paddling.com and was encouraged by the number of people that owned them or wanted to buy one. It seems odd then, that freestyle carbon paddles aren't available anymore. But as mentioned previously, there's probably not enough demand to make it profitable. Too bad.

maybe.
Hit and switch with a very lightweight bent shaft paddle is wonderful and calls for some coordination and practice. If you drop the paddle in the water when you switch you all know the name of that creek. A double avoids this
Most single blades are 20 inches. You need to put the paddle in the water for the paddle to work as it should. If you don't have 20 inches of water depth you are back up that creek.. A double takes about four inches of water.

If you are in confused seas a double will give you an instant brace on either side.

But I don't see that happening in the BWCA

the portaging thing is another issue. Break apart doubles do not like sand stuck in the ferrule. A non break apart will need to be tied into your boat every time somehow.

I am just bipolar. My canoe go in both lake and because of where I live the ocean. However my Monarch does not like the double and will rap your knuckles if you try.

Stowing the double for the portage: Most canoes should allow to it crammed in using various thwarts and foot braces. Small strap if there is not a tight fit someplace. I like the solid handhold it then provides for easily keeping the canoe balanced.

I use a single blade when I paddle tandem, of course, but I'm a double blade convert for solo.
There are times when I wish I had a single blade, narrow creek, very shallow water, canoe wants to weathervane, but, most of the time I prefer the double blade. It is just so much easier to keep the boat going straight and I'm not wasting energy with a correction stroke. I've been on club outings when a solo paddler was having trouble keeping up, using a single blade, so he switched to double and then had no trouble keeping up. I don't have to prove anything to anyone, I do what works for me, and that's the double blade.
To really get the full benefit, you need to convert your canoe to pack style and some canoes are better suited than others.

First off, I'm a big fan of Werner kayak paddles. I own an awful lot of kayak paddles and almost all of them are Werner. I own an Aqua Bound Stingray Carbon, which was a Paddling Magazine paddle of the year last year or the year before, but I prefer Werner.
If you look into the high angle vs. low angle debate, on the internet, they always talk about the high angle having a larger blade.
What if the high angle doesn't have a larger blade? How does that change the debate?
My Werner Shuna, a high angle, has a slightly smaller blade area than the super popular, low angle Werner Camano.
I just ordered a Werner Cyprus, a rather expensive full carbon fiber, high angle with an even smaller blade.
You can get a high angle with a large blade, like my Werner Corryvreckan, and it has its place, but you don't have to and I'd recommend a more moderate blade size.

Idiot Savant said:

I use a single blade when I paddle tandem, of course, but I'm a double blade convert for solo.
There are times when I wish I had a single blade, narrow creek, very shallow water, canoe wants to weathervane, but, most of the time I prefer the double blade. It is just so much easier to keep the boat going straight and I'm not wasting energy with a correction stroke. I've been on club outings when a solo paddler was having trouble keeping up, using a single blade, so he switched to double and then had no trouble keeping up. I don't have to prove anything to anyone, I do what works for me, and that's the double blade.
To really get the full benefit, you need to convert your canoe to pack style and some canoes are better suited than others.

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Why the conversion to pack style for a double blade? Racing kayaks are more effective with higher seats - less stable but better stroke dynamics. I find that sitting low in a canoe awkward and uncomfortable.

I have always been curious about this - lower seats in canoes for seated paddling, sitting in the bilge for a pack canoe instead of higher position for efficiency and longer shafts on paddles.

Idiot Savant said:

To really get the full benefit, you need to convert your canoe to pack style and some canoes are better suited than others.

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carpenter said:

Why the conversion to pack style for a double blade?

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If converting to "pack style" means sitting on the floor, I don't see any reason to do that. Any regular solo or tandem canoe can be paddled with a double blade paddle from its normal seat(s) if it can be paddled that way with a single blade.

Pack canoes have bottom seating not to accommodate double paddles, but mainly because they are narrow and tippy along with being short and of shallow depth. When initial instability is designed into a paddle craft, bottom seating is called for. And when bottom seating is called for, the paddler is too low to have effective leverage with a single blade paddle, making the double blade the more effective choice.

To respond to the last couple posts.
Are we talking about racing canoes and paddling with a single blade? I thought we were talking tripping canoes and double blades, but, if we are talking racing canoes, I have a book on Racing Canoes by Peter Heed and Dick Mansfield that recommends lowering the seat. Just saying.

Both Northstar and Swift (and others) offer their solo touring/tripping canoes in both pack style and regular style. Northstar offers their Northwind in pack style but I bought it with regular seats and converted it to pack style. I don't like sitting super low, because I have a short torso and long arms and it's getting hard for me to get up from a really low position, so I added an inch of minicell under the foam seat that Northstar sells. I also have the seat attached to the floor of the canoe with Velcro so I can easily switch back if I should ever want to.
Sitting in the foam seat, with a backrest is super comfy. It's like sitting in a lounge chair. The other reason to do it is you can use a shorter paddle which is more efficient to use. You sit in a canoe seat, set high, you need a really long paddle.
More stability is always a good thing.

Idiot Savant said:

To respond to the last couple posts.
Are we talking about racing canoes and paddling with a single blade? I thought we were talking tripping canoes and double blades, but, if we are talking racing canoes, I have a book on Racing Canoes by Peter Heed and Dick Mansfield that recommends lowering the seat. Just saying.

Both Northstar and Swift (and others) offer their solo touring/tripping canoes in both pack style and regular style. Northstar offers their Northwind in pack style but I bought it with regular seats and converted it to pack style. I don't like sitting super low, because I have a short torso and long arms and it's getting hard for me to get up from a really low position, so I added an inch of minicell under the foam seat that Northstar sells. I also have the seat attached to the floor of the canoe with Velcro so I can easily switch back if I should ever want to.
Sitting in the foam seat, with a backrest is super comfy. It's like sitting in a lounge chair. The other reason to do it is you can use a shorter paddle which is more efficient to use. You sit in a canoe seat, set high, you need a really long paddle.
More stability is always a good thing.

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Not racing hit and switch marathon canoes, but rather racing kayaks, so starting off quite close to the water already...I am perhaps starting to answer my own question with additional details provided above, but higher performance kayaks have taller seats and narrower hulls so very unstable but the paddler works to the boat. Maybe lower seat position for marathon canoes suits the paddles and posture of the paddlers - short and choppy? A big contrast with the C1 sprint canoe stroke, shaft length and paddler position.

It just seems to me that a higher seating position allows for more control, sacrificing some initial stability but that is managed with technique. Providing a lower seat position for sitting gives the paddler more initial stability but sacrifices the option of kneeling (especially for those with larger physiques) while kneeling drops provide both options and some more reach and boat "feel"...but as always what ever suits the paddler and the boat.

Lower seating, wider boat, low angle double blade will be a much more relaxed paddle than in a narrow boat with a high angle blade and higher seated position but you will lose the power and tracking that comes with the high-angle blade and higher seat.

I'm not sure I'm following your thinking, carpenter, but let me clarify a few things. I have a lot of experience with double blade paddling.
I don't know that you can't kneel and use a double bade, but I've never heard of it. Because you don't kneel, you need the added stability of a lower seat position, and a higher seat position wouldn't serve any purpose.
As I said here, or under another post, I'm currently leaning toward the high angle blade and style. In fact, I just ordered a new Werner Cyprus. If anything, a lower seat position is even more important with the high angle blade and style.
I think low vs. high is partly a matter of conditioning. As I get in better shape, my paddling, naturally, gets less relaxed and more aggressive. I can probably move to a larger blade, as the season wears on, too. Maybe, ideally, smaller, low angle blade, in the spring, and larger high angle blade later in the season. The Cyprus is high angle with a smallish blade, so I'm not sure how that's going to work out.

Idiot Savant said:

I don't know that you can't kneel and use a double bade, but I've never heard of it.

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Kneelers kneel.

Before coming to my senses via instruction from Bob Foote, I began whitewater paddling in northern California in 1980 with a 9 foot (108 inch, 275 cm) double paddle kneeling from a central seat in my 15" deep Mad River Explorer. I could not have cleared the gunwales with comfort in that deep boat by sitting on the floor. My son paddled my Gyramax whitewater C-1 kneeling off the foam pedestal seat with a short double blade paddle.

Versus sitting on the floor, kneeling gives the paddler higher and better line-of-site vision ahead, increases paddle leverage with both double and single blades, makes it easier to clear knuckle-rapping gunwales, and allows use of high angle or low angle double blades. The paddler's center of gravity is not as low when kneeling off a regular hung seat as when sitting on the bottom, but the COG is lower than when sitting on the seat. A nice compromise, in my opinion, for boats stable enough to allow kneeling off a standard hung seat.

I also kneel rather than sit in all my flat water canoes when using bent shaft paddles, no matter whether paddling single-sided correction or Minnesota switch. Kneeling gives me more stability than sitting, allows easier pitching of the canoe bow down for enhancing stern slide turns, allows more rotational re-positioning of the torso, and hence allows more efficient cross-bow strokes than when sitting.

Tangentially, in my whitewater and sea kayaks where I always use a double blade and have to sit, I am nevertheless especially fond of a cross-bow Duffek (rudder) with a heel (edge) away from the Duffek side to make a sharp turn to the cross-bow Duffek side. Here's an okay illustration:

I've been curious about the human factors for a long time. I'm a single blade paddler and subjecticely I feel most powerful kneeling, least powerful sitting on the floor, and somewhere in-between sitting on a pedestal seat. I wonder which positions are technically superior because of body mechanics, I wonder how much variation exists across different people, and I also wonder about conditioning. I don't know how to assess the efficiency of the paddler/paddle/boat system other than subjective personal impressions. I also have a weird personal constraint in that I do not like a super high cadence for recreational cruising since it feels too frantic to me so I may give up some performance and efficiency so I can limit my cadence to around 50 strokes/minute.