leong Posted December 22, 2014 Share Posted December 22, 2014 As we all know asymmetrical paddles have a top and a bottom to the paddle blade. Everyday I see many paddles held upside down, usually in the hands of paddlers on sit-on-top recreational kayaks. The interesting thing is that the blades of about 4 out of 5 are upside down (even including those that have writing on the blades). I wonder why this is so? For a random paddle orientation wouldn’t half of the paddles be held correctly, don’t you think?-Leon (who's puzzled by this) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
billvoss Posted December 23, 2014 Share Posted December 23, 2014 How big is your observational sample size? I hope significantly larger than 5.Are you more likely to notice someone's paddle is upside down if the writing is also upside down? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
leong Posted December 23, 2014 Author Share Posted December 23, 2014 Bill,Granted I haven’t conducted a scientific survey. In a statistical sense I’m doing a loose form of continuous sampling.>>How big is your observational sample size? I hope significantly larger than 5.On most weekdays I usually notice about a dozen or so paddlers and most paddles are held upside down. On weekend days I’d guess I see more than 50 paddlers with a similar percentage of upside down paddles. This pattern has persisted for several months so the cumulative sample size is now pretty large.>>Are you more likely to notice someone's paddle is upside down if the writing is also upside down?Regarding the writing, I don’t think so. Upside down paddles are very obvious to me before I even notice if there’s writing on the blade. In fact, when I confront an “upside down” situation I usually tell the paddler to reverse the paddle so the writing is right side up.Nevertheless there are some possible bias problems or other reasons for my curious sampling results. For example:* I might inadvertently double- or even triple-count the same kayaker over several days.* I might inadvertently notice the upside-down paddles more often than the right-side-up paddles (but I don’t think it has anything to do with any writing on the blades).* Most of the kayaks are rented. Perhaps paddle-holding instructions at the rental store(s) are wrong.* I don’t keep an accurate score. But it does seem that roughly 4 out of 5 encounters are with upside down paddles.-LeonPSThis is in SE Florida where quite a few recreational bike riders ride on the wrong side (left side) of the road. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brian Nystrom Posted December 23, 2014 Share Posted December 23, 2014 The last time I saw someone paddling with their paddle upside-down, I mentioned it and moved on. I saw him again later and he had the paddle right-side-up, but backwards. I mentioned that and he decided to argue with me, so I moved on... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dan Foster Posted December 23, 2014 Share Posted December 23, 2014 Rec paddle manufacturers should put an iPhone holder right at the center of the paddle shaft, and the problem would instantly solve itself. Just like how nobody knew where to put their PDFs until rec boats started including those handy bungee cords on the back deck... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael_Crouse Posted December 23, 2014 Share Posted December 23, 2014 Maybe Werner should add those :-) stickers to all their paddles, not just the kids sprite model?I've also seen SUPers holding a bent shaft paddle backwards. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
josko Posted December 23, 2014 Share Posted December 23, 2014 I once saw Todd Wright and his whole class with their paddles upside down. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NateHanson Posted December 24, 2014 Share Posted December 24, 2014 As we all know asymmetrical paddles have a top and a bottom to the paddle blade. Everyday I see many paddles held upside down, usually in the hands of paddlers on sit-on-top recreational kayaks. The interesting thing is that the blades of about 4 out of 5 are upside down (even including those that have writing on the blades). I wonder why this is so? For a random paddle orientation wouldn’t half of the paddles be held correctly, don’t you think?-Leon (who's puzzled by this)I have this exact same statistics question about my 8-year-old son's pants. They are backwards way more than 50% of the time. If he just isn't paying attention, this number should be 50%, but I think there must be some as yet undiscovered x-factor which is skewing the result disproportionately towards backwards pants. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phil Allen Posted December 24, 2014 Share Posted December 24, 2014 I once saw Todd Wright and his whole class with their paddles upside down.upside down or backwards? There's a skill drill for backwards.bestPhil Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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