safety tip: paddles

Just did a cracking Millers Run here in Cape Town with a friend from Australia, Richard Eadie.

Perfect - small, clean runs and a fresh 25kt SSE. The kind of paddle where your whole body feels cleansed and energised afterwards. Geez I love this sport.

But... getting back to the safety issue. About 2km out from Fish Hoek I came up to a paddler who was making fairly heavy weather of the conditions - and then I saw... that he'd broken his paddle and was using the one blade that was left. I came up alongside him and he said he was fine, the paddle had broken 10min into the run and he wanted to carry on as he was. Phew, respect.

Afterwards at the club I asked him how he'd broken it. He said he thought he'd actually damaged it the previous weekend on the Fish River Marathon, hitting a rock.

So here's the safety tip: If you insist on paddling rivers, use a different paddle when you get back on the sea, especially in big conditions (not that it was especially hectic today)! You never know when your river paddle, abused as it is with smashing against rocks, etc, might snap a blade.

Same thing happened last week in reverse. Paddling millpond sheltered part of Swan River early evening, quiet social paddle and bang 90% of left blade snapped and disappeared. Paddle was my Avon Descent (white water) paddle I was using while my Stellar carbon paddle was being repaired. Had a crack in middle of blade which I knew about but paid no heed to, as only used as spare or for inexperienced mates to use downwind (!).

Was maybe a kilometre from where we'd started and no big deal but hey, got me thinking about paddles alone out to Little Island about 2 k's off coast here in a stiff easterly (offshore breeze).

It was fun paddling back with one blade and using the rudder, but would not have survived 20 knot cross winds I was in off the coast yesterday.