Hey lads,
Anyone know a good sturdy set of paddles that'd be polo legal but wouldn't fall to shit on whitewater?
Niall B?
I hear Double Diamonds would do the job but I'm not sure...
I also called into Rough Stuff and Mark has an extremely sturdy, though maybe slightly heavy set, (I didn't have anything to judge weight against so I'm not sure) for 250 quid.
Cheers
Dave O'R had rough stuff paddles too, he might have a recommendation to offer about them.
There was a pair of galasport paddles in the trailer paddle cage at the club trip on Saturday, I handled them quite briefly (just to make sure they got the bus home rather than the cage) but I think they had rounded edges.
You could check out the canoes and kayaks for sale facebook page, you might pick up a bargain there, I seem to recall a post from somebody who was "giving up polo" and selling of gear, it'd be worth keeping an eye on.
No first hand advice from me though, I'm on the same set of Werner Players two and a half years later and there's no way those spikey needle fibres are polo legal!
I do go on Canoes and Kayaks a fair bit alright
You thinking of Mongey? Far as I remember his blades would have pretty much disintegrated if they got a bit of bashing off rocks
Polo legal is min 5mm blade thickness and corners are min radius 30mm
GalaSports would probably be grand, but they're not the best paddle for either. They're heavy, they crack along the edge and soak water into the inside of the paddle, they're not really the materials you'd want to be looking at at this stage. They're also not the optimum shape...
To be honest your asking can I use a hammer to put a screw in, you can do it but it won't be pretty. I know some people added a plastic rim to black diamonds a few years ago to make them polo legal.
I'd suggest looking at the second hand polo blade market and buying there and then saving and buying a white water set. Basically you will damage any blade on white water and such damage won't really affect them for whitewater but could make them illegal in a polo match. If you look at any of the werners as Maryanne pointed out the get roughed up.
So my adivce, which is not what you want to hear, is buy a set for polo and a set for the river.
Howdie-hi!
My thoughts/ramblings...
Any whitewater paddle that's polo legal is going to be really expensive. The only ones are the Foam-core ones (AT2, Werner Shoguns/double-Diamonds/ Stikines etc
The normal players/sherpas or carbon players/sherpas are too thin and as mentioned, wouldn't last very long.
The Gala-sport ones mentioned above aren't polo-legal as they're both too thin and have metal tips ( also verboden). Although, Galasport do some proper polo paddles. I'd be skeptical about rough-stuff...
That said, I do use the same for both. I have to say that I'm really impressed with how they have held up and kept their edge in reasonable nick. It is a set of paddles that has a good reputation for being tough, but I'm afraid that this is reflected in the price. I didn't intend to get a set for both, I just ended up also using them for polo as club prijons are so horrible to use.
Something else worth keeping is mind is that although they're much better at everything than a club paddle, they're not as good for polo as a good polo paddle...and something like a set of Bracas would be at least €100 cheaper.
There's also going to be a conflict over what feather you get as you'll probably want very different one for polo and whitewater.
You could probably get two sets of good paddles for the price of a set of foam-core whitewater ones, but I suspect you're not looking to shed that kind of money anyway.
Your two best options are probably either.
Get a normal set of whitewater blades and add a trim (something like this maybe) (http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B007SMCGJG/ref%3Dasc_df_B007SMCGJG8887864/%3Ftag%3Daskcom1-21%26creative%3D22110%26creativeASIN%3DB007SMCGJG%26linkCode%3Dasn?oo=41627715) . look out for different blade shapes here as it makes a huge difference on with how difficult it is to control the ball.
or you could get a set of polo paddles and use them for whitewater, just repairing them with it becomes an issue.
Rough stuff aren't very helpful if your paddles break. They normally do nothing for you even if its a fault.