Hi!

well... at the moment i got a cheap lettmann paddle that's something like an allrounder...
but i'm only doing whitewater and playboating (not really since my current boat isn't the born playboat... necky jive...., but i plan to get another in some time)
my current paddle got a lot of disadvantages and is twisted, that's why i'm looking for a new one. but i have absolutely no idea which paddle i should take since i don't really know which producers there are.

well ... the price should be something beetween $150 and $250... and it's main appliance should be playboating (it should be applicable in whitewater too). i think the blades should be big so i don't have to paddle with a high frequency but can accomplish a long way by doing only a few strokes...

so far i only know robson and ty warp, but i think there are much more good producers...

if my size matters, i'm about 5' 6" tall...

hope you got something for me.......

I have owned the Robson Stud, which is a play paddle, and now I own an ATX and an AT4 play. I found that the Robson did not have a lot of power in the water while river runing. The ATX is by far the best river running paddle I have tried and the AT4 play is quite good for river running, I don´t do much playboating so I´m not going to give advice on that. Also the AT4 is relatively cheep.

check it out at
www.atpaddle.com

Hey,

I got a Mergner Bionic Flow - high end 195 (www.mergner-paddel.de), doing mainly playboating. I am pretty happy with it, actually, I think it's an awesome paddle. Everybody else I talked to liked it too.

The blade is pretty big and gives you plenty power. The high-end is pretty rigid, which I particularly like (The Bionic-flow easy on the other hand is less rigid, although I am sure you may get happy with that paddle too),

Werner (www.wernerpaddles.com) as well as Kober (www.kober-moll.com) paddles are pretty established.

Size matters! I am 1.75m tall (use some decent units so that people know what you are talking about). I guess for playboating you want a paddle that is shorter and has less of a twist (30° or less), for whitewater you may want a longer paddle (get this confirmed by a somewhat more experienced paddler than me). Ken Whiting gives following recommendation in one of his playboater-videos:

Height Paddle Length
5'8'' to 6'1'' (170 to 180cm) 194-200cm
5'4'' to 5'8'' (160 to 170 cm) 192-198 cm
over 6' (180cm) 198-204cm
(see, even Americans know deep inside that the silly european units are better).

Hope that helps.

Some editing on the table:

Height; Paddle Length
5'8'' to 6'1'' (170 to 180cm); 194-200cm
5'4'' to 5'8'' (160 to 170 cm); 192-198 cm
over 6' (180cm);198-204cm

thx for all that information

@skirnir
ATPaddle is totally new to me. Well, i think i'm gonna take a closer look at the website.. what kind of money do they demand for an average playboating paddle?

@ApparentlyUrs
as i first saw the bionic paddle (at a banner on this website), i thought that this design leads to exactly nothing, and isn't thought to do anything else then promote the product... but as long as it isn't worse than any normal paddles.. why not try it... if i believe your table the Bionic Flow Carbon with something beetween 190 and 195 would fit for me..
i don't know if i wanna spend the money for a high end... though it might be worth it..
yeah i think i should ask someone who got a bigger clue than me, but that's not that easy since the only (experienced) playboater i know just went to south america and is gonna stay there till next summer

well.. about that bionic stuff... are those paddles really any better than normal ones? anyway, the strange look in some way appeals to me...

are werner and kober paddles about as pricy as the ones of mergner?

about the units: as you might see i'm not very used to writing in english... i often read foot/inch lengths in english texts, so i thought it would be best to use them instead of cm...

this is what the AT people say about their AT4

The AT4 is by far the most durable paddle on the planet and is also the lightest in its class! All for $249! Nothing else comes close.

so the question then is to believe or don´t believe the hype

hm... $249 is really the most i would spend.....
if the at4 play really is that durable that would be nice.....

well.. right now i have to decide between the following paddles:
- AT4 Play 191 30° (that is very durable) at $249
- Bionic Flow Carbon 192,5 30° (that has a new kind of blade) at about $225
- TyWarp 10 Bentshaft at about $230
hm dont know.. the difference in price isn't that high so i think i'm just gonna ignore it at first..

but is there a possibility to get atpaddles in europe at all?

I bought an AT in England at www.whitewaterthecanoecentre.co.uk/
so even though they are not listed at the AT site. You might try to contact AT if you are interested in their paddles. There are tons of paddles out there so you shouldn´t have problems with finding something.

Just remember it´s better to buy one expensive paddle every 2 or 3 years than 2 or 3 cheep paddles per year.

Werner paddles are somewhat pricy, however, some people love em. Kober paddles have some less expensive paddles as well. I would recommend you to have a look at the Kober web page and try to get some reviews on their paddles or to test one.

[quote:6e191776ea="skirnir"]Just remember it´s better to buy one expensive paddle every 2 or 3 years than 2 or 3 cheep paddles per year.[/quote:6e191776ea]

yeah, but i always keep in mind that there have been occasions where i could have lost my paddle... and there are lots of peope who lost their paddles.... and loosing $250 or (if i'd take a really good paddle like an AT2) $400 is kinda heavy

@ApparentlyUsr
hm... i think there is no name i saw more often on a paddle than kober... so they are most likely not bad..
is kober german? cause if they are it should be easy for me to obtain one of their paddles...

try paddle-people.com (Duetsch), they 've got much materials tested with comment on the site, links to
take a look

@ DeNayGo / comment on mergner paddle design

Actually, I think these paddles are carefully designed and the materials are carefully selected according there properties / best use.

I don't think composites are the best choice of material for a blade. Composites advantage is a high ratio of strength / weight, which allow to design stiff but light structures. Composites are very good in transmitting forces along their fibers (thus in plane of the composite, depending on the direction of the fibres). Composites, however, have rather poor strength out of plane and are susceptible to abrasion (ever seen how these composite blades seem to get smaller and smaller?).

You see a lot of paddles with composite blades. Either it works non the less, or, I am absolutely wrong (then, studying five years engineering would have been a waste of time), or, to some extend, composites are just fashionable and used to promote the product (what is for sure, composites are more expensive to process)!?

It would not surprise me if injection-molded paddles last longer and are less susceptible to abrasion and to hits from the side on the edge of the paddle.

@ arthur
thx for the link.. but the freestyle paddles i found there are way too pricy...

@ ApparentlyUrs
hm.. what i meant by "promoting the product" was the new look of the bionic paddles; 4 rips instead of 1 in the middle...
anyway i think my paddle is injection-molded (as it has some round spot on it's blades) and after having used it about 23 times the edges have lots of disadvantages...

would advise against seven 2 paddles as my set have firstly filled with water, then delaminated, lost colour and now the grips are falling off, i am relying on my faithful schlegal workblades until my double diamonds arrive.

Darren