Daysi Tragesser

S drops me off at the harbor on her way to somewhere else.  It takes me just a few moments to put-in as anyone that has canoed with me can tell.  Everything is in its place and ready to go when I start, and everything is left in its place and ready to go when I finish.

It is a very calm day, warm and sunny - it is a day to make special use of.   When I reach the mouth of the harbor, I see that I can still pass under the rusty bridge into Gulf Pond, but it is too calm to go there and instead I turn seaward.  I spot a long-tailed duck, the first that I have ever seen although I know it from noticing its wonderful plumage while browsing through bird guides.  It does not oblige me with a good pose.

Long Tailed Duck

 A long tailed duck can dive to 200 ft and spend 3 to 4 minutes at a time underwater.

I turn SW and follow the seashore.  Recently, I followed an online discussion about risk.  One person wrote that we have become a risk averse society.  I did not agree with that, but thought about it long enough to decide that we are actually a risk ignorant society.  I paddle past beach front homes that are unscathed, and then for some quirk of nature, I paddle past fifteen or twenty houses that have the first floors busted in, windows gone or sometimes the floor, joists and walls removed leaving a cantilevered second floor dangling over the sand.  This pattern repeats itself for as long as I am on the salt water.  And we were only touched by the edge of the hurricane.


It is not the first hurricane, by any means, to reach Connecticut.  Nor will it be the last.

Something that sounds like a loon call draws me out towards a tiny sand bar at the tip of a groin (groins are underwater wing dams for the purpose of collecting and holding beachfront).  I don't see anything that matches that call, but instead I find two American oystercatchers.

American Oystercatcher

When I get to Milford Point, I find out why the houses on this exposed beach survived with minimal damage.  I had only seen them from the marsh on the other side of the point.  There is a sand/gravel bar on the sea side that is nearly a 1/4 mile across.  While well submerged, it would've broken some of the water's impact during the storm surge.  I paddle in less than 2 feet of water for a few hundred yards to get into the river.  There is a stiff current against me.


I continue to fight that current into the Wheeler marsh until I can slip into one of the dozens of channels that work their way through the spartina.  The cloudless day lights the fall colored grass to a beautiful bronze.  I wind through the channels aware that there is an expiration date when one is in a tidal marsh during a falling tide.  At some point, it is time to seek the larger deeper channels lest one find the way forward blocked... and find the way back blocked as well.  I spot a couple dozen black ducks, about 15 greater yellow legs, and 2 great blue herons during the passage.

When I exit the upstream end of the marsh, it is open big river with a growing wind at my back that not quite cancels the opposing current.  I take out a couple miles up at the feral cat park.

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The Minnesota Historical Society posted new pictures of their circa 1839 paddle on their Collections Up Close blog. I had previously written about this paddle and posted some grainy photos I could find but these full colour and high resolution pics really bring out the gorgeous detail on this historic piece.



Here is the writeup:

The donor of this wooden canoe paddle stated that it was found near the current location of Stillwater, Minnesota around 1840. The paddle contains a long slim tapering blade, a concave indention at the base of the grip, and elaborate carving on the remainder of the flat grip. The carved design include a cross, a shield under a diamond and scroll band, and diamond shapes filled in with cross-hatching. There are also the carved initials "W. D.", which may not be original. It is purported to be a Voyageur paddle.

Posted according to their CC fair use policy

Master Paddle Maker, Graham Warren, of Moosehead Canoes & Paddles has released another must-have publication for anyone interested in this art form. Entitled,  100 Canoe Paddle Designs,  it features measured offsets and historical background for a wide array of paddles. Here's a glimpse of the cover...




Using digitized methods, basic outline sketches of the paddles have been rendered along with their precise measurements for anyone wishing to replicate the designs. Given the high cost of print media these days, the book is all black & white, but it isn't meant to be a coffee-table conversation piece, anyway. It was created by a paddle maker for other paddler makers!

Graham has meticulously documented a cross-section of functional paddles from around the globe. In fact, half the book is devoted to paddles outside my obviously Canadian-biased concept of "canoe country". There are fascinating examples from the Caribbean, South America and the Pacific Islands. For the history buff, he has included ancient paddles unearthed in archaeological digs in China, Denmark, The Netherlands, and the U.K. And, for owners of heirloom cedar canvas canoes, he has included offsets for famous brands like Chestnut, Peterborough and Rushton replicated from historic catalogs.

A few of the paddles in the book have been featured here on the site, including the c1878 Maliseet at the York Sunbury Museum, the Iroquois paddles at the Royal Ontario Museum, the c. 1860-1875 voyageur paddle authenticated by Canadian Antique Roadshow, and the "Northeastern Woodland" paddles at the British Museum.

Graham humbly mentions that he is no professional archaeologist or ethnologist but he does a marvelous job of providing the relevant background on each of the designs along with additional reading sources.

Most interesting and also very unique is the "Consensus Paddle". Offset data from 50 paddles in the book were entered into CorelDraw and a composite sketch created. I'll keep the surprise open for readers, but the blade design that resulted from this global pool of paddles is something that looked very appealing for a future carving project.

Between this new book and his previously publications - Making Paddles in Wood (see this post here) and Canoe Paddles: A complete guide to making your own, there are now more than enough plans to keep the enthusiastic paddle maker content for years to come.

Hat's off to Graham for doing a wonderful job in creating this outstanding paddle making resource.

A beautifully carved Maori paddle (Hoe) from Steve Pyne. The blade is stunning of course, but check out the hollowed loop on the shaft. Never seen anything like it!


Details & Description from his site:

Hoe is a canoe paddle. The highly decorated versions would normally be used for ceremonial purposes by the Chief's. Decorative work in which notched ridges run parallel to one, two or three plain ridges is termed Rauponga. Within the design the plain ridges are known as Patapata and the hollows between the ridges as Haehae, while the notched ridge itself is termed Pakati. Each individual notch is an Arapata and they form a diamond pattern called Tuara-kuri. The eyes are inlaid with paua amore colourful relative of the abalone. The spirals serve as points of movement or joint marks, for the jaw, shoulders, elbow & hips. The "three fingered hand" is found on many ancestral figures, some also show a back-bending thumb or spur. This shows an avian feature superimposed on the human image.

Length: 1660mm
Width: 155mm

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In my never ending quest to learn more about unique paddle designs, I stumbled across the page of Dr. Gordon L. Fisher describing his recent (2008) publication, Guideboat Paddles: An Adirondack Treasure. Available online is a PDF format excerpt from the book that shows some black and white photos documenting grip carving. Intrigued, I ordered a copy and recently received it in the mail.

Single blade Adirondack style paddles are quite a speciality in the paddling community. Their usage and history localized to the Adirondack region of New York state. My knowledge of guideboats in general was quite limited having assumed that they were exclusively rowed with oars rather than propelled with single blades, but an informative opening section in the book describes how many guides would silently maneuver the guideboats with single blade paddles as their sporting passengers would hunt deer and other game. Often, while one person powered the craft with oars, a helmsman would steer the boat with a single blade from the stern. Single blade paddles were therefore quite functional with guideboat touring.

The truly interesting feature of the paddles, however, are the circular grips. The book details some of the surviving historical paddles now at the Adirondack Museum and provides plenty of computer generated sketches and technical details necessary for reproducing the unique handle designs. Offset data as well as fullsized portions of the blade curves make reproduction a breeze. From a canoeing persepective, the narrow, straight sided blades would serve well for solo paddling, although the length of the paddles (and proportional blade lengths) would need to be reduced , especially when kneeling. Other than that, these are some designs I intend to replicated soon.

What I thoroughly enjoyed about the book, besides the plentiful illustrations and photos, was the historical context of each of the museum paddles described in the text. To many, a paddle is just a utilitarian object until a story is attached to it and its history revealed. All in all, I thoroughly enjoyed Gordon's contribution to the paddle making community and hope to make a trip to the Adirondack Museum one day and check these unique designs out with my own eyes.

SCS has announced the new Pactor 4 modem which is twice as fast as the pactor 3. Click here for further specification. Here is there intro......
SCS is proud to present its new P4dragon DR-7800, a completely new development, and the first PACTOR-4 capable short-wave modem. P4dragon stands for the most ingenious data transfer algorithms and the highest computing power possible in PACTOR controllers of the 4th generation.

The fast quad-core DSP used in the DR-7800 enables for the very first time, a high data rate, approaching very close to the Shannon limit, as well as an extremely high immunity to interference. PACTOR-4, with its 10 speed levels and adaptive equalizer, adjusts itself ideally to varying channel conditions, and guarantees reliable data transfer even under very poor propagation conditions. Due to this high reliability, P4dragon modems allow transmission of safety relevant data via shortwave, and provide an excellent value for money when compared to many satellite services.

Here's a nice (admittedly a bit tattered) painting of a bunch of NY32s, design #125, as published by The Rudder magazine, circa 1937. Courtesy of our friends from City Island, namely Tom Nye. Thanks for sending this.