Crank Shaft Wings

Hi All,
I need to use a crank shaft as have a dodgy wrist. Anybody with experience of using a crank on wings?
I also need to buy a set! Based in UK.

16 hours and no reply... I wonder whether anyone here has tried a bent shaft with a wing paddle...
I tried to model what a bent shaft might feel like and my conclusion is that it would force my wrist into an uncomfortable bent position instead of being straight the way they are on a straight shaft.
If your wrists don't remain straight throughout the stroke then maybe your hands are not far enough apart or you are not rotating enough? For sure you should use a low feather angle somewhere in the 0 to 45 degree range to minimize the wrist movement in the other direction. If you do all that, there should be no strain on your wrists.
But I haven't tried a bent shaft, so I can't say for sure...

Thanks. I see where you are coming from but I do have an arthritic injury [very old one] in one wrist and have been paddling with crank shafts for years with no problems. I've had a long trial with straight shaft wings but wrist hurts. [correct technique/varied technique etc]
I have found a well known paddle maker who will make me them up so I guess I will just have to bite the bullet and see if it works. Its a reasonable expense so was seeing if anyone had any knowledge or experience first.

Due to a wrist injury (TFCC-tear) I have been using a crank shaft for sea kayaking for years. My wrist is ok now but I did better with the crank shaft for the first 2-3 years after the injury was operated on (with one year of no paddling pot op). I have always had a very vertical stroke and the crank shaft did not change or impair that.

For my surfski, I of course exclusively use a wing paddle and have no problem with it.
I don't see why the combination of crank-shaft and wing blade shouldn't work.

Good luck and let us know how the crank-wing (Cring? Wank?) works, maybe even post a picture of this unique paddle.

Andy

I tried to approach Jochen Lettmann about this topic at the last „Boot“- Exhibition. He told me that they had already tried about 40(!) prototypes with this idea without finding a solution justifying the extra effort for building a bent shaft for a near vertical paddle technique. This was for people with healthy joints of course!
If (for whatever reason) you want to combine an ergo shaft with wing blades, make sure to be able to experiment with the angle between shaft and blade! With all Euro- Ergo- paddles I know, the plane of the shaft is 90° to the surface of the blade, which is right for a purely PULLING motion. If you FLY a wing SIDEWAYS through the water, the blade needs an angle of attack with the plane of the shaft still in line with the direction of the generated power, not square to the surface of the blade! If you eg. use a Ergo Pro Sea of Lettmann like a wing (the blade will work nicely, even though it was NOT built to be used like that!), you have to grasp the shaft very hard, there is a bad torque due to the lever of the crank.
There even was a commercially built crank shaft wing years ago, I believe from Poland. But somehow the idea didn't catch.

To the OP, a friend of mine has used a crank shaft with his wings for years now and swears by them. If memory serves, he started using them for similar reasons as you. I'll direct him to this thread and see if he adds anything. But from what I've gleaned from him, he won't go back to straight shaft and has been injury free ( wrist wise) for years.

You can buy wing paddles with a crank shaft on aliexpress. Pretty cheap.
To me bending wrists inwards like what these shafts seem to be made to do looks like an injury in the making. It may make some sense in a sea kayak with a long pulling stroke with a much later exit, but with a short angled surfski stroke it looks pretty unsafe to me. It's pretty easy to permanently destabilize a wrist by loading it in an awkward bent position.

I have used a crank shaft Euro paddle (Werner Shuna) for recreational paddling in my sea kayaks for over 10 years now and for this type of paddling it is perfect. The greatest advantage of this shaft on the flat blade is that it places your hands behind the blade, greatly reducing any tendency for the flat blade to "flutter". (Another plus is you are always aware of where your hands are relative to the blade when having to perform "combat" rolls in a hurry!)

However, for paddling my skis I use wings - my Epic mid wing has an oval shaft, whilst my Brasca IV has a rounded shaft. My preference is for the rounded shaft as it allows my hand placement in the best position relative to the blade face (to suit my style of paddling,) whereas with the oval shaft my hands have to be placed as dictated by the oval shape (or be very uncomfortable and risk blisters etc).

I reckon that having a cranked shaft on a wing would have a similar problem with hand placement, but would be significantly worse with the wing due to the way the wing is required to move/fly through the water to "lock in".

I'll stick with "soft", rounded shafts for my wings as for me they are the way to go.