Paddle sizing revisited.

[Idiot Savant]

I have a paddle sizing question. I am ordering a Fishell Ray's Special, and am not sure whether I should order a 61" or a 64". My torso—top-of-seat to bottom-of-chin—is 27". My current quiver of paddles are a 60" Fishell Modified Ottertail, both a Breaking Branches 54" Expedition Plus and 57" Beavertail. The Modified Ottertail and Beavertail have a 33" and 32" shaft length, which seems to fit well. The Fishell size chart suggests a 61" Special for my height (5'7"), but that's a shaft length of only 30.5". Should I size up to a 64" so that the shaft length is 32"?

My out of boat method is to sit on a cooler and measure from the top of the cooler to my nose. I then add 3 or four inches to that, plus whatever the blade length is. Obviously, as pointed out by others, the length of the blade matters in what length paddle you order. I have a modified special. I might even have two. I don't remember the blade length so let me run downstairs and take a quick measure. Oh, looks like I must have both a Ray Special and a Modified special. I believe the shorter one is the Modified special and seems to be about 27", the longer one is about 29".
The best method is to sit in your loaded canoe and stick a paddle in the water, up to it's throat, and see how high the grip comes. For safety reasons it really shouldn't come higher than the top of your head and I go for about eye level. That's just to get you in the ballpark, not your "perfect" size.
I'd like to buy one of Werner's adjustable paddles and play around with different lengths and see if I end up liking a different length than I've been using.

 

[yellowcanoe]

Maine Guide paddles are typically 72 inches allowing paddling standing up.
They have a variable grip and amwhen seated the paddler typically has the grip hand over the shaft
Most efficient way to do the Northwoods Stroke which is fairly horizontal and a beavertsil or otter tail shaped blade

 

[Idiot Savant]

Maine Guide paddles are typically 72 inches allowing paddling standing up.
They have a variable grip and amwhen seated the paddler typically has the grip hand over the shaft
Most efficient way to do the Northwoods Stroke which is fairly horizontal and a beavertsil or otter tail shaped blade

I was looking at a paddle with a north woods grip. Not cheap and not sure it would be worth it to me. I've been wanting to learn the north woods stroke but this really isn't north woods stroke country. I did a trip down the Colorado, below Moab, in July and was weaving my way through all the sandbars. A long skinny blade would have been pretty worthless.
If I ever decide to do another Boundary Waters trip, maybe I'll work on it. Looks pretty cool.

 

[KeithPal]

It was just convenient for me to talk about the absurd length without going into the intricacies of paddle sizing.
Obviously my otter tails are longer than my sugar islands.
What I don't understand is why paddles aren't sold by shaft length. It would save me having to always look at the blade dimensions and doing some quick math before ordering.

Agree - would love to have folks post shaft length as well.

Bending Branches have a consistent blade length within each model, and the majority of their square tipped, straight shaft blades are 19" long (the exceptions are the Sunburst at 17" and the Black Pearl ST at 18.75").

Grey Owl is different - within a model, both the shaft and the blade change length as the overall paddle gets longer. Fortunately, each paddle page on their web site has a table with both shaft and blade length for each overall length.

A good canoe shop should post both shaft and overall length by their paddles and at least have a brief chat with customers about sizing.

A good canoe shop also keeps in mind that every paddler is different, and that the guidelines for sizing are just that - guidelines. We're not talking measuring with micrometers here.

 

[lowangle al]

That's right, guidelines are just guidelines and unless you're paddling the same boat from the same seat in the same position every time, it might be a good idea to have them in a couple different lengths.

Size isn't my main criteria for choosing a paddle. Since most of my paddles came with boats I bought or were antique store finds that I reconditioned they are not my optimum size. I go for the nicest feeling, lightest weight paddle that is close to optimum size over a perfectly fit one that is almost as nice. I'm sure others are more sensitive to length than I am.

 

[Tsuga8]

Agree with all that's been said regarding shaft vs blade length, sitting vs kneeling, centered vs heeled, loaded vs unloaded, tandem vs solo, etc.

I definitely find I need a longer paddle (shaft) for tandem than soloing, even soloing a wide tandem. A missing component from a lot of the math I see (blade, shaft, total) is the freeboard - how close do you want your bottom hand from the water level? As mentioned, this varies by seat height, paddler size, load, etc. I even find it varies for me day to day - some days I guess I slouch more? (Probably really how much of my butt is on the seat while kneeling.)

For the biometric methods that recommend shaft length by placing the paddle across your head and getting your elbows at right angles to get appropriate shaft length (Bruce Smith and I think Badger recommends this approach over the torso length methods), I'm not sure that accounts well for freeboard.

The old timers liked longer paddles - Bill Porter's book (1969) recommends a paddle of your height, to allow for paddling while standing, kneeling, or sitting, as the Maine guides still do (see Lisa DeHart's recommended paddle lengths on YouTube). Very different from the short shafted, bent-angle paddles popular in some circles today. I think the old-timers were more willing to heft more paddle weight along with all the other weight that comes of traditional gear.

Personally, I will also use some paddles for poling/punting through shadows. If you're going to punt more than paddle, a longer paddle is better - either it's shallow enough to punt, or deep enough to dig the blade deeper. The original post pic showed a marsh where I could imagine punting a fair bit - thus, perhaps, the long synethtic paddle. A duck hunter might do a lot of poling, and also want a longer paddle to retreive decoys etc. Some fishing situations might be similiar.

 

[Idiot Savant]

Agree with all that's been said regarding shaft vs blade length, sitting vs kneeling, centered vs heeled, loaded vs unloaded, tandem vs solo, etc.

I definitely find I need a longer paddle (shaft) for tandem than soloing, even soloing a wide tandem. A missing component from a lot of the math I see (blade, shaft, total) is the freeboard - how close do you want your bottom hand from the water level? As mentioned, this varies by seat height, paddler size, load, etc. I even find it varies for me day to day - some days I guess I slouch more? (Probably really how much of my butt is on the seat while kneeling.)

For the biometric methods that recommend shaft length by placing the paddle across your head and getting your elbows at right angles to get appropriate shaft length (Bruce Smith and I think Badger recommends this approach over the torso length methods), I'm not sure that accounts well for freeboard.

The old timers liked longer paddles - Bill Porter's book (1969) recommends a paddle of your height, to allow for paddling while standing, kneeling, or sitting, as the Maine guides still do (see Lisa DeHart's recommended paddle lengths on YouTube). Very different from the short shafted, bent-angle paddles popular in some circles today. I think the old-timers were more willing to heft more paddle weight along with all the other weight that comes of traditional gear.

Personally, I will also use some paddles for poling/punting through shadows. If you're going to punt more than paddle, a longer paddle is better - either it's shallow enough to punt, or deep enough to dig the blade deeper. The original post pic showed a marsh where I could imagine punting a fair bit - thus, perhaps, the long synethtic paddle. A duck hunter might do a lot of poling, and also want a longer paddle to retreive decoys etc. Some fishing situations might be similiar.

When I go for a day paddle, I almost always use my IK, so about the only time I really get to use a canoe paddle is on a trip.
My most recent trip was an overnighter on the Colorado, in a tandem (bow). I was noticing that my lower hand was ending up gripping the paddle higher than I previously thought. Maybe two hands above the throat. I'm not sure if this should have an effect on my paddle length or not. I think it's still a good idea to keep your upper hand within the safe zone (no higher than your forehead).
When paddling and not using the paddle as a pole, I would think that you want the blade submerged to the throat, but not much more.
And if you want the upper hand to be no higher than your eyes or forehead, that gives you a pretty limited range for shaft length.
Many canoe manufacturers give you a displacement at different water levels. If you estimate what your load will be you can get an idea which waterline you will be at. Then, measuring your seat height above the bottom of the canoe, you can get a pretty accurate estimate for the distance from the seat to the waterline. So, if your seat is six inches high and you think your boat will be loaded to the four inch waterline, then you need to add two inches to the measurement from the seat to your eyes to get the shaft length. For me, that's no more than 32 inches. So, with a 20 inch blade I'd get a 52 inch paddle. If I were getting a straight shaft, I might fudge a bit and get a 54"