I'm planning to add a solo canoe to the fleet and just wondered what type of paddle you solo paddlers prefer. Standard, either straight or bent shaft, or kayak style double?
Thanks for the input.

Depends on the boat. A canoe designed for hit and switch (center seat well off the floor) will perform best with a competent paddler with a bent shaft. Floor seated boats (Placid boat works etc) will do great with a double blade. I prefer a bent but paddle a slender sleek craft- couldn't be as fast or efficient with a double. Kneeling style hulls work best with a straight.

I use straight shaft paddles - one Zaverel carbon, and one Bending Branches as the spare.  The paddles I use are shorter than those I use for tandem - the seat is closer to the water, so need a shorter shafted paddle.  That's for lakes.

for white water, I use a heavy fiberglass Werner Guide model, I think it is, and an Aqua Bound Odyssey as the spare - need something that will take the beating.

db wrote on Sep 18^th, 2019 at 5:25pm:


  I've learned to live with the "waddle" because I hate switching side to side with a single.

  First thing you learn/need when you use a double paddle in a canoe is a good pair of DRIP RINGS. Because of the higher sides of the canoe compared to a kayak, some people try and do that high windmill stroke you see kayakers do. What you want in a "flat" stroke, I think they call it a "touring" stroke?

I'm sure they are noisier but since I'm solo and rarely see that many people the times I like to go tripping the noise factor doesn't bother me. If I want to be stealthy for fishing/animal pics, I switch to the single bent shaft.

  I've seen 2 good paddlers doing the hut-hut really fly down the lake BUT the fastest I've ever seen a canoe move was on Jean Lk.

I was on the South shore barely making headway creeping along the shoreline into a stiff East-West wind. Whitecaps in the middle of the lake.

I catch something out of the corner of my eye? It's 2 young guys in a tandem canoe BOTH using double paddles. They must have practiced because they were in perfect rhythm.  That canoe looked like it had a motor on the back.

I think guys with both single bent shafts and double paddles and used to paddling together could really fly in say a 17 ft canoe.

I always advise people who think they might want to get a double paddle to get an entry-level model, make sure it's LONG enough because even a TRUE solo is wider than a kayak. Get some drip rings and watch a video on how to do the TOURING stroke.

If you hate the double, you can buy T-grip adapters and just end up with 2 single spare paddles.

[quote]Double blade is good if paddler is poor or slow at switching or lacks the discipline to maintain the shorter stroke, quick cadence and fidelity of force direction required for efficient use of bent./quote]

  I agree with everything you say but some people are poor paddlers because like me they only get to go on a canoe trip once maybe 2x a year if they are lucky.

Where I live in SE Mich, a canoe isn't the watercraft you want for the local lakes. Kayak/Fishing kayak will get much more use.

By the time the paddling season rolls around I have virtually NO muscle/paddle memory. With the double and least for me, I can get into a half-way decent rhythm much faster than with a single/bent shaft.

I went to the double because I want to go farther/faster than I could floundering with the single.  The tradeoff is it is much harder on the body
so that' why I do the weighted work-outs I do.

I could have never taken some of my longer trips just using a single paddle. My next major purchase will probably be a carbon-fiber shaft double paddle which will ease the strain on my upper body.

A double paddle isn't for everyone that's for sure.