I had my paddle break in a race on Saturday - I was leaning into my stroke with about 500m to the finish when the blade snapped off - which, not surprisingly, had me straight in for a swim and spoiled my race.
The paddle (carbon wings with oval carbon shaft) had the increasingly popular construction in which the blade inserts into the shaft rather than vice-versa and it appeared that the end of the shaft had spilt, allowing the blade to tear out - I never recovered the blade. I am sure that the shaft inside blade construction which used to be universal would be stronger at this high stress point, but there may be other considerations?
Is this a common failure, or a freak incident? I have never had paddles break in normal use before, and this occured with no warning at all and leaves me distinctly nervous of using the same type again. With a single blade, even in small chop, I found it very hard to remount and stay upright for long and almost impossible to make real progress.