Who makes the largest carbon fiber paddle, and is it something I need?

lisa carrington, for those who are wondering

Cute... Built the same as the woman I used to live with (Who was a retired gymnast/had a gymnastics school) 

I will expressly advocate against a large paddle. I don't care how strong you are, the world champions use medium size blades. I would do as the champions do.

No one uses large blades anymore. The reason is they don't provide benefit beyond Olympic sprint distances and are a penalty on medium to long distances (as in distances over a mile or 2)

Resist the urge. Keep a medium wing. Put your energy into perfecting your stroke and it will pay far more dividends.

MCImes wrote: I will expressly advocate against a large paddle. I don't care how strong you are, the world champions use medium size blades. I would do as the champions do.

No one uses large blades anymore. The reason is they don't provide benefit beyond Olympic sprint distances and are a penalty on medium to long distances (as in distances over a mile or 2)

Resist the urge. Keep a medium wing. Put your energy into perfecting your stroke and it will pay far more dividends.

Well, my friend, I think you wiser paddlers here have made that point for me and I tend to agree now... also because of my budget being very limited.    However, I know in the future I probably will buy a max sized paddle just to experiment with, knowing, as one poster said that it will be difficult to re-sell in the states, so likely a luxury purchase.

I'm figuring out that there's a time period within the first 8 strokes that my mid-size paddle is slipping, but as I reach the max hull speed of the v8 and push beyond it doesn't matter, at that point I feel the paddle is more than large enough...  Not sure if I'm saying that right, but 8 strokes isn't worth 200-500 bucks US for me right now. (Insert sex joke here).

Impala wrote: "Lisa Carrington who weighs 65kg but cranks out 30 pullups with an added 20kg weight for a warmup"
I am wondering where that achievemnt is documented with footage? I only found a Maori language YT channel where this was claimed (

at 2:50), but not actually shown. I doubt whether this is possible at all for a woman CONSECUTIVELY ... and if yes, it would be an all-out effort, not a warm-up. If, however, she drops to her feet between pulls, I have no doubt it can work for an accomplished athlete like her. With spacing such breaks as required, you can do  quite a number of pullups in a certain time, even with added weight. Not being specifically strong, I can do only 12 pullups consecutively, but 180 in 30 minutes as a training routine.

I just saw what you wrote. It looks like in the video some of what is said is taken out of context, so maybe not 30 consecutive, Or the 30 they mentioned may not directly tie in to her reps at 45. When things are edited it's hard to say what she said.  It would be fun to see her train back vs some of the gymnasts I worked/trained with. I'm sure she could do an amazing job. It's all academic, she's an amazing athlete but I'm sure she'd be the first to set us straight, I doubt she wants a cult-like following.

At the end of the day I'd just love to see some real athletes in person here and get to train with some in the states, it would be very humbling... it's just such a limited scene here...

Have actually thought about going out to where all the rowers practice and doing some runs; seeing if there's any other misfit paddlers out there like me. Not sure why rowing is so big here and the surf-sports aren't.

If you go out in the water here, in Florida, which is beautiful year round, you'll see 95% fishing kayaks with fat Americans in them... maybe 4.5% ocean kayaks and and less than one percent surfskis. They are like zebras here. Easier to find a right-hand drive car for sale.

There are definitely surf skis and OC’s in the Tampa area.  I do not know exactly who or where, but they are there. There used to be a very large race held just north of the bay (honeymoon island) called SharkBite. They did not all come from out of town.  I met a couple guys at the Gorge that paddle with a group, seems like Wednesday nights (could very well be off on this), but I think on north side of bay (you are on south side, I believe).  Go to some races in the area, even if SUP-heavy races, and you will likely meet some local ski or OC paddlers.  Tampa area is a great place to paddle. I do not live anywhere near, but visit occasionally.  

mickeyA wrote: There are definitely surf skis and OC’s in the Tampa area.  I do not know exactly who or where, but they are there. There used to be a very large race held just north of the bay (honeymoon island) called SharkBite. They did not all come from out of town.  I met a couple guys at the Gorge that paddle with a group, seems like Wednesday nights (could very well be off on this), but I think on north side of bay (you are on south side, I believe).  Go to some races in the area, even if SUP-heavy races, and you will likely meet some local ski or OC paddlers.  Tampa area is a great place to paddle. I do not live anywhere near, but visit occasionally.  

Thanks for the leads.  Any websites or group names you can suggest on top of the SharkBite race?

I'll try to find some people. Solo paddling is nice too. I have 4 surf-skis and nobody to go with. (Except my current girlfriend, who was a tennis background, not gymnastics, so I spend a lot of time sitting waiting when I go with her).

Paddleguru.com is a good source for race events.  Quickly looking over it, I see the Clearwater Beach Classic Sept 25-26.  No SUP’s in this one.  Looks like a strong start list. Perfect for you to meet local paddlers.  There are plenty of paddlers in Tampa area.

This has been a thought provoking conversation. I definitely agree with most contributors that developing technique is way more important than going straight for the biggest paddle. Learning how to generate power with a correct stroke must come before trying to get fast through cadence or a bigger paddle. Kayakking guy - please take the time to watch Ivan Lawler paddle technique masterclass which is over an hour of pearls of wisdom. His later videos that go through each body part's involvement in stroke then really help to apply the principles taught. One key point is about generating downward force through the blade as pulling it back quickly loses grip on the water as the angle of the blade changes.
Wombat661 - Lawler also talks about a wing paddle essentially being different to a flat blade only in the way water escapes more from one side than the other and this helps to guide the blade through the water in a path that matches well to a good technique with use of large muscle groups. I don't think that a wing or Bernoulli effect has a lot to do with it as this requires quite a high flow (like an aircraft wing or a hydrofoil). The blade just doesn't move fast in the water at all so it can't create a pressure differential (lift). It is just gaining some purchase in the water so that you can lever yourself and your boat forward. I hope others can shed more light on this but as far as I can tell "wing" blade is a misnomer and it's really a scoop that is just a small modification of a flat blade.
Impala - the presenter of the Lisa Carrington video says she made the 30 chin-ups look easy. From this and the short clip shown I'm willing to bet she does the chin-ups consecutively, without feet touching down in between. She is quite strong but she has a phenomenal power to weight ratio. It is also incredible that her bench press is the same (relative to her weight) as Valerie Adams who was shotput world champion 8 times (indoor + outdoor) and Olympic champion twice. Valerie trained for maximum power in a single explosive effort vs Lisa needing to train for sustained output over 200m+. Just be impressed by her world beating performance. I'm not sceptical about what she can do in the gym.

Here are two links that talk about paddle blade science. (I have not seriously read them yet)
www.paddlingscience.net/
people.eng.unimelb.edu.au/imarusic/proceedings/11/Jackson.pdf

Whether the paddle is generating lift of re-directing water, is important to get the fluid mechanics right.
The problem we have is there are a lot of variable to a good paddle stroke. There is pitch of the blade, angle of the paddle shaft relative to the water, the arc that the blade travel through and the speed profile. Each person has to find their own optimal stroke.
I think using minimal effort stroke allow you to tell immediately if what you are doing is helping the stroke or causing the blade to slip. After a while, you will automatically adopt an optimal stroke. I think a lot of the nuance of a stroke is subconsciously build into muscle memory.
Is very tempting to just power thru the stroke to overcome technique. Power will give you a burst of speed. As you get older, like me, then you have to use technique to overcome lack of power I wished I spent time doing technique when I was younger. I was riding a road bike then. That too is highly technique dependent. Power plus technique will be a winning combination.
Surfski is like a three legged stool. The three legs of the stool are strength, technique and balance. You need all of them to work together. That is what makes surfski so interesting. OC1 on the other hand should be more strength and technique, but less balance.

Wombat661 wrote: Here are two links that talk about paddle blade science. (I have not seriously read them yet)
www.paddlingscience.net/
people.eng.unimelb.edu.au/imarusic/proceedings/11/Jackson.pdf

Whether the paddle is generating lift of re-directing water, is important to get the fluid mechanics right.
The problem we have is there are a lot of variable to a good paddle stroke. There is pitch of the blade, angle of the paddle shaft relative to the water, the arc that the blade travel through and the speed profile. Each person has to find their own optimal stroke.
I think using minimal effort stroke allow you to tell immediately if what you are doing is helping the stroke or causing the blade to slip. After a while, you will automatically adopt an optimal stroke. I think a lot of the nuance of a stroke is subconsciously build into muscle memory.
Is very tempting to just power thru the stroke to overcome technique. Power will give you a burst of speed. As you get older, like me, then you have to use technique to overcome lack of power I wished I spent time doing technique when I was younger. I was riding a road bike then. That too is highly technique dependent. Power plus technique will be a winning combination.
Surfski is like a three legged stool. The three legs of the stool are strength, technique and balance. You need all of them to work together. That is what makes surfski so interesting. OC1 on the other hand should be more strength and technique, but less balance.

This reminds me of guys discussing golf, or basketball etc... and there's 95% of us spending exhaustive amounts of time talking about nuances, then there's the natural athlete that just walks onto the court who can dunk, or hit a 350 yard drive; with little training, and couldn't tell ya a thing about how they do it.

Most of us are in the former category... Myself included.

I think there's a point for me where I don't really care about the details, and just want to do the activity for the pure fun of it... maybe that's a blessing.

I think if I did have competitive paddlers here, I'd start to see my time on the surfski as a series of training tasks, start to lose the immediacy of it and get lost in the urge to be a better competitor...

As it is, I never see other skis, and my days are spent paddling by fat boaters and fat kayakers on fishing kayaks, off to my own quiet places away from them. I know if I ever see sprint events in person I'll get hooked, so perhaps best to stay away. It might become a job.

CrabStick wrote: Wombat661 - Lawler also talks about a wing paddle essentially being different to a flat blade only in the way water escapes more from one side than the other and this helps to guide the blade through the water in a path that matches well to a good technique with use of large muscle groups. I don't think that a wing or Bernoulli effect has a lot to do with it as this requires quite a high flow (like an aircraft wing or a hydrofoil). The blade just doesn't move fast in the water at all so it can't create a pressure differential (lift). It is just gaining some purchase in the water so that you can lever yourself and your boat forward. I hope others can shed more light on this but as far as I can tell "wing" blade is a misnomer and it's really a scoop that is just a small modification of a flat blade.

I agree that there isn't a pressure differential.

I suspect that what is happening is that the paddle blade redirects the flow over the back of the blade so that part of it has a vector towards the back of the boat.

Also, the wing blade, used correctly, prevents stalling and vortices. Both of these cause loss of propulsion or 'grip' on the water. I used to live on a prop-powered boat and the effect of this on rudder or prop is dramatic. Sudden extreme movements of the rudder would cause the water to 'unstick' from the rudder and you'd only gain effect from the flow hitting one side. A gentle movement, not such an extreme angle would retain water flow past both sides, resulting in much greater turning effect.

Hi kayakking guy, I'm sure you're not alone in wanting to just get out and paddle and are correct that most of us are not naturally elite athletes. We would like to think that we are not spending exhaustive amounts of time discussing nuances though, rather that we just want to spend some of the time when we can't paddle (night time for example) learning about the details of a very technique-heavy sport. I enjoy reading about the experiences of others and their paddling journey, even when I'm paddling 5x per week over the Summer downwind season.
Sorry that I sound like I'm just trying to be right in my last couple of posts but, like a lot of the regular contributors, I'd like to encourage discussion and avoid misinformation.
I just wish I had learnt a half decent technique early on as it's taking a long time to unlearn bad habits and try to replace these with drills that reinforce strong and efficient movement patterns and don't upset my balance or make my shoulders sore. That's not nuance. It's just building on the basics.
I also wish I didn't find the gym so boring as doing a bit of resistance work over the Winter has really helped my paddling and injury prevention. My only worry with chin-ups is the potential to encourage a pulling motion with the biceps that should be avoided during the power phase of stroke. They don't seem to adversely affect Lisa though!

I have 3 paddles now. My first was the biggest (med), then a small and finally an extra small.
I am also strong and enjoy my pull-ups, so of course I started with what I was told is a real man’s paddle.

That bigger paddle also wore out my rotator cuff, requiring surgery. It wasn’t the pull that did it, but poor technique on the exit, where I’d go past vertical and lift the blade out incorrectly. Of course that bigger blade holds more water on it during an incorrect exit, which in my case was not good for the shoulder girdle at all.

In any event, I find that the more I paddle (6 years now) the smaller my paddle gets, and the faster and further I go.

The only time I use the bigger blade now (and mine is just a med!) is when doing 200m odd sprints. Then it makes a difference, but really only because it’s a bit faster off a standing start, which makes a difference over such short distances. Once the boat is gliding, I find the smaller paddles let me pull the boat through just as quickly as the bigger blade paddle.