Segla Gear Paddles
I’m happy to announce that I have become an ambassador for Segla Gear Paddles, a relative newcomer in the kayaking world, who make carbon fibre kayak paddles in Belgium. Segla Gear makes quite a few different models of paddles, both Euro and Greenland style, and I have a particular love of their Greenland paddles.
So why do I use a Greenland paddle?
About a year or so ago, I suffered a wrist tendon injury whilst paddling over to the Isle of Wight. I was unable to paddle initially, as all my paddles at the time caused significant pain any time I tried to use them.
Desperate to be able to continue paddling (I’m notoriously stubborn when it comes to allowing myself time to recover from injuries), I decided to try a Greenland paddle, as I had read that they were a lot less strain on the joints and also, crucially, use a different forward stroke technique, and I was curious to see if this would allow me to paddle without pain. As it turns out, my hunch was right, and the paddles allowed me to continue getting out onto the water (I also found that switching to a bent shaft Euro paddle helped).
Anyway, to cut a longer story short, I tried out several Greenland paddles (a Kajaksport Inuksuk, an Eastpole Paddles Nanook and a Gear Lab Kalleq, all of which were excellent in their own way), but eventually settled on a Segla Gear Ikigai, which I’d tried whilst paddling with Ian from Sea Kayak Academy in Pembrokeshire. Sea Kayak Academy is the distributor for Segla Gear’s paddles in the UK, and Ian was keen for me to try a few of them out. There was something about the Ikigai that just immediately felt right for me, so I bought one, and it quickly became my favourite paddle. It’s incredibly lightweight, and very precise in the water. Like the Gear Lab Kalleq, the Ikigai cuts incredibly cleanly into the water, and that kind of precision is very useful for navigating around rocks and other features, whilst its weight makes it ideal for very long days on the water.
As someone who does a lot of multi day trips, this has been a significant reason for why I keep using it, as it’s simply the least tiring paddle I’ve ever used. At the risk of sounding a bit corny, the paddle is an absolute joy to use.
Many of the Greenland paddles you’ll see out on the water are made of wood. This is partly because they’re relatively easy and affordable to make this way; anyone with access to basic woodworking materials can fashion one for themselves. And while I do love the feel of my wooden EastPole Paddles Nanook, which is also a very beautiful looking paddle, there’s no denying that carbon fibre paddles have better performance. When you’re covering a lot of miles in one day, this does make a difference.
“How do you paddle efficiently with that thing?“
I get asked this a lot. The kayak paddles we’re used to seeing most commonly are, in fact, a modern European design, whilst Greenland paddles are essentially the original kayak paddles. Kayaks were invented by the Inuits who use them for hunting, and these are the paddles they use. They may look like useless skinny sticks, but their surface area is actually the same as that of European paddles; it’s just that this surface area is spread over a longer distance up the paddle’s shaft, as opposed to being solely at the end of the shaft.
This means that they’re just as efficient at grabbing and moving water as a European style paddle, provided you use the correct technique, which ensures that you bury the full length of the blade with each stroke. There are plenty of videos on Youtube demonstrating this technique if you’re interested, but essentially you hold the paddle at an angle which causes the blade to dive very quickly before rising very naturally on the recovery.
Whilst a European paddle has its power phase on the catch phase of the stroke (ie when you initially place the blade into the water), the power phase of a Greenland paddle is on the recovery part of the stroke, which is when it’s rising out of the water again. By pushing forward with the hand on the other side, you load the stroke with a significant amount of power.
It’s admittedly taken me a while to get comfortable with using a Greenland paddle in strong wind; whether this was a psychological attachment to a familiar paddling style that I was clinging to when things got rough, or whether it was something else, I have only recently found myself not switching to my Werner Cyprus when paddling in bigger conditions. Through persistence, I’ve actually found that Greenland paddles provide more support and reassurance when things get rough.
While you can use both high and low angle strokes with a Greenland, personally I find them more suitable to a low angle stroke. This makes the stroke very easy to maintain for long distances with minimum strain on the body.
Online Sea Kayaking has an excellent introduction course for the basic Greenland forward stroke.
