Phil Meyer started his kayaking career in Colorado in the days when kayaks were made in the backyard out of fiberglass and river trips meant stopping in eddies to duct tape your kayak back together. He enjoys instructing kayaking and SWR almost as much as just playing on the rivers. While he was the manager for the Costa Rican Outward Bound School, he and friends captured several first descents. He was also featured in
Hi, this is Phil Meyer, on behalf of Expert Village. Next we're going to talk about canoe paddles. As you can see, I've got a couple different kinds. These are all basically for recreational canoeing. These are the lower ends of the scale when it comes to canoe paddles. You can spend anything from $10 to $400 on a paddle, but these are the lower scale, these are your basic canoe paddles. So first thing you'll notice, you've got different lengths. The thing with the canoe paddle, again, you need to go to your local store, tell them what type of canoe you're going to be paddling, they'll look at your body length and tell you what length of paddle you need. Different people use different paddles. For me, in my boat, I'm paddling about a 51, 52, but for everybody else, that will be different. So first thing, difference with a canoe paddle and a kayak paddle. Again, you've got a shaft; you've only got one blade on a canoe paddle. You've also got a "T" grip handle at the top. So when you grab the paddle, you want to grab it right hand, if you're right handed, on the grip. You always want to keep that hand on the grip, left hand down on the shaft. So when I go to take a stroke, I want to grab it so that I can extend the blade into the water in front of me, and drag it back to me. So again, differences that you can see on these paddles, these have metal shafts on these too, plastic blades, the middle one is wood. It's all a personal preference on what you like. They also make these paddles in carbon fiber and fiberglass, different weights, you want to stick to the lightest paddle you can. Some people have what they call a bent shaft, where the shaft is straight to here, comes down, and the blade is actually bent at an angle like this. But again, check with your local store. Tell them what type of canoeing you're going to be doing. They'll help you pick the size and the paddle that's right for you. Hi, this is Phil Meyer, on behalf of Expert Village. Just like to talk to you about the different types of canoes and some of the parts of a canoe. Right here we have our standard, tandem canoe, made for two people, you can tell that by the two different seats in the boat. You can look; the front seat's slightly higher than the back seat. In the middle of the boat we have the yoke, that's so when you pick up the boat like we showed you earlier using your legs, one person could actually carry the boat across his shoulders. Now if you look, there are a lot of different materials for these boats. You have aluminum, a plastic called Royal X, some of the old fiberglass boats, but basically they're all the same, it's just a matter of how light your boat's going to be.
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