Above are two sets of 5-piece paddles. I’ve further refined the water cups from the previous year by shortening the cup fabric and painting it inside and out with Seam Grip. Doing this adds a ton of abrasion resistance and rigidity. Both paddles use custom carbon fibre tubing. The tubing is available via Aliexpress. The seller Best Carbon Fiber Products is great. Email him directly and he can get a custom order set up on the site with the exact amount and lengths you need.
To match traditional paddle sizing in a 5-piece paddle, you’ll want the following order:
29x25x400mm, 3 pcs (these are the three sections of the paddle shaft)
25x21x130mm, 4 pcs (these are the four internal fittings slotted inside the paddle shaft).
Note that you may need to drill/dremel your paddle blades and or purchase an additional two internal fitting sections depending on the construction of your paddle. The first Werner paddle is all fibreglass and doesn’t need any additional sections. I just slotted a 25x21x130mm tube and applied JB weld. The cheap Canada Tire thermoplastic paddle needed extensive drilling and 1/2″ (12.7mm) additional fittings. I suggest you cut your paddles apart before ordering to see what you need.
To complete the paddles, you’ll need to sand the inner fitting tubes until they fit halfway inside the shaft tubes. Next, soften all exterior facing tube ends with a rotary tool like a Dremel. Glue one side of the inner tubing with JB weld.
Next, you’ll need to drill holes and install 9mm single-pin spring clips. These can be bought from Aliexpress or Amazon. Make sure you get the ones that are both hollow and stainless. Important: don’t trust sellers. Put the clips into a glass of water overnight and dry them for a second day in a plastic bag to ensure they are stainless. It took two orders to get actual stainless steel.
Second, you’ll need to clip off about 3cms of the spring clip tail. If you don’t do this they’ll never work correctly. When drilling the holes for the clips, make sure the tubes are already inserted for perfect alignment. Start from a small drill bit, and work up from there. If you make a mistake, you’ll end up with a wobbly paddle and it will feel terrible. You’ll need to use a Dremel and smooth out the hole inside and outside a fair bit. Resist the urge to simply drill a bigger hole. The holes must be exactly 9mm or there will be wobble. If the button depresses and doesn’t pop back up, use the Dremel along with constant pushes of your thumb until the spring clip operates smoothly. This process will take some time but it will work well 100% reliably with some effort.
When you are done, you’ll have a backpacking/airline-ready paddle setup!
Not sure if I covered this one before, but I’ve also upgraded the spray skirt. The original skirt isn’t configured for this more upright/forward-sitting setup, and it just doesn’t have enough fabric give at the base for the kind of pressures and movements you’ll experience in whitewater. I cut the skirt apart and added four additional 150gsm panels and ironed/sewed and seam sealed them around the waist area. This is a huge improvement and allows for a full range of twisting without worry that the fabric will become too taunt and pull off. Honestly, I see no downside to this addition and feel the skirt should offer more fabric by default around the base.
A couple of final points. First, Matt’s combing ring tube upgrade recommendation is a must for a proper whitewater setup. This solved a lot of water ingress and combing ring strength issues. I had originally replaced the blue tubing with another black Nylon one, but it also proved to be too weak. This new 1/2 Pex tube is great.
Lastly, I can’t recommend the gear from Anfibio enough. In the picture above, I’m using their inflatable lifejacket and their customizable packraft drysuit. Amazing gear for backpacking. The only issue is shipping. If you live in Canada or the US, you’ll need to work through a parcel forwarding service. This is a major pain, but zero shipping options for North America seems to be common for German companies. I recommend the service ShipGerman and selecting the post-service option to keep your costs down.
(Above) one final upgrade: I’ve replaced the rather wonky value on the Thermarest XTherm with one of Matt’s values. This allows for a FlexTailGear pump I use for the rafts to inflate the pad in a few seconds. The black fabric is leftovers used to seal the original value opening.
This is a long post! The next projects for 2024 are an inflatable flatwater sail and an inflatable helmet. The goal is to make an international backcountry whitewater kit that requires only a single backpack for everything. A couple of European startups are working on inflatable helmets, so I’ll try whichever model comes to market first.