The concept.
The object of this race paddle was to have power and the blade to do an automatic correction stroke.
When doing a correction stroke with a conventional blade, you loose a lot of power. So you tend to only do the angle for a small part of the stroke right at the beginning.
With this blade the idea is to be able to keep the angle.
Rotating it just for the last part of the stroke.
The idea also came from the wing Kayak blades but in SUP we use the blade on both sides of the board. So it can not be asymmetrical, for the power you are only using half of the blade.
You can see that the blade still has a lot of power.
This next shot you will see that if I pull the blade flat, it pulls a lot of water. This makes it very efficient for turning.
So how is it working?
Side A is doing the correction stroke and pulling the nose towards the paddle. Side B is driving the board forwards.
Due to the wing profile, it helps to let the paddle drift away from the board at the end of the stroke and not take it to far back.
You can see that the blade is very efficient.
At the end of the stroke, as you rotate it, you get a lot of power.
This is a short clip to show the blade in action.
Now it is time to work on the new paddle technique I need to use this blade.
So see you in the next article, when I have worked it out.
thewavehobbit 