Frank wrote:
Read a 1940ies canoeing book the other day and saw an advert for paddles
made by F. Collar in Oxford.

Kind of intrigued me, seems wooden paddles are mostly imported into the UK
nowadays, from far away places.

The problem with wooden paddles is the same as the problem with wooden
boats: they don't respond well to reproducible mass production
techniques if you're doing a Good Job. Back in the 40s you didn't
really have much choice of materials that combined lightness and
strength like wood does, and with the greater emphasis on WW these days
things you can bounce off rocks have a definite advantage. So the
wooden paddle market is really limited to touring now, which isn't (I'd
have thought) big enough in the UK to support specialist wooden paddle
makers in any sort of volume (compare and contrast N. America).

Pete.
--
Peter Clinch Medical Physics IT Officer
Tel 44 1382 660111 ext. 33637 Univ. of Dundee, Ninewells Hospital
Fax 44 1382 640177 Dundee DD1 9SY Scotland UK
net http://www.dundee.ac.uk/~pjclinch/