Galen Hekhuis wrote:
Has anyone tried to paddle a
kayak with a canoe type paddle in the open water or is the idea too stupid
to even contemplate?

Aleut paddlers in kayaks used single bladed paddles exclusively in some cases.
They also had double blade paddles, however.

The only problem with a single blade paddle in the conventional kayaks that we
paddle is that it isn't as easy to use from the low, sitting position compared
to a kneeling position. The Aleut used a kneeling position with a single blade
- the coaming of their kayaks was quite high and wide.

Mike

I have an ottertail that I use in my sea kayak for a change of pace and
muscles. Only in deep, mostly flat, water. Kneeling in a 22" wide boat
using a single blade paddle would be quite beyond most paddlers I know,
except for sprinter racers. The pics I have seen of Aleuts look like
the are sitting, but I haven't seen them all.

Steve


Michael Daly wrote:
Galen Hekhuis wrote:
Has anyone tried to paddle a
kayak with a canoe type paddle in the open water or is the idea too stupid
to even contemplate?

Aleut paddlers in kayaks used single bladed paddles exclusively in some cases.
They also had double blade paddles, however.

The only problem with a single blade paddle in the conventional kayaks that we
paddle is that it isn't as easy to use from the low, sitting position compared
to a kneeling position. The Aleut used a kneeling position with a single blade
- the coaming of their kayaks was quite high and wide.

Mike

wrote:
I have an ottertail that I use in my sea kayak for a change of pace and
muscles.

I've been thinking of making a short-shaft ottertail for that.

Only in deep, mostly flat, water. Kneeling in a 22" wide boat
using a single blade paddle would be quite beyond most paddlers I know,
except for sprinter racers.

Canoe racers do it all the time and those racing canoes have negative initial
stability. They don't look 22" wide either. They have to brace a lot if waves
whip up more than a few inches high!

The pics I have seen of Aleuts look like
the are sitting, but I haven't seen them all.

Take a look at the size of a King Island or similar kayak's cockpit. The
coaming diameter allowed them to put two people in back-to-back with the forward
facing one paddling. The coamings are so high that using a double blade paddle
is awkward. Of the few rolls the Aleut used (that I know of), one was a single
blade roll (documented in D.Hutchinson's "Eskimo Rolling" book).

Mike