hi there!!
I have a starboard full carbón paddle with a huge blade (bougth it two years ago and by that time was the biggest one, i think 95 width or something)
I only do waves and until august, only with a naish hokua 9´5, 140 liters
Today i tried a very small and thin blade. Very different from what i´m used to. only 2 hour sesión, small waves.
My question:
i have preorderer a starboard Hypernut 7´2 x 28´´ .
Should i consider a smaller blade???? is there a relation between small board/ small blade or something? it is really a small blade that much better for surfing?
thanks a lot
I've got a old Laird Paddle that I've kept from the first board I ever owned and it has a really large blade which I really like. A while back all the info on here i was reading made me think that I should I buy a smaller bladed paddle. But didn't really like the feel of it and it was just gathering dust.
Then I downsized from my 9'3 to a 7'11. At first I really thought I'd bitten off more than I could chew with a 110L board @ 100kg. But it got me thinking and I went home cut 6 inches off the smaller blade paddle and now I'm loving my 7'11.
I figure the smaller blade means more more strokes and therefore more oppertunities to reballance and readjust, if that makes sence. I figured I'm lower in the water with my knees more bent, so a shorter shaft works well too. An idea i got off some of the french guys on here ho ride really short SUP's.
I find the shorter blade easier to flick around from sisde to side while surfing too. Wondering if I should get the hacksaw out again. I think I remember a photo of one of the French guys looking over his paddle and it was only upto his nose or chin.
Hmmmn...
So Like DJ said Yes, Yes and Yes
As North says, you will definitely want a shorter length. A good rule of thumb is to have the total paddle length be your height.
On the blade size, smaller is lighter and you can have the shaft closer to the rail, which is good, but although a smaller blade is nice on a 8'., when you get to the 7' mark, there are quite a lot of diverging opinions: some people prefer a small blade as they feel that a less powerful stroke risk less putting them off balance, where I like very powerful blades to take off on basically one stroke.
