Question for you BWCA third seat paddlers.

I"m replace the yoke in a Bell Northwind with a Spring Creek yoke/seat. My question is what paddle works the best? Spring Creek says that people use a kayak paddle. Has any one used a kayak paddle? If so how did it perform? What length worked the best?

With the seat dead center a paddler may have to lean to reach the water with a regular so a kayak paddle may be more efficient.

Thanks.

Curt

The problem with using a kayak paddle from the third seat as I see it is, as you pointed out, the paddlers would have to be constantly leaning side-to-side to make the paddle strokes.

Kayak paddles are much longer than canoe paddles for sure, but where the hands are placed on the shaft, it actually makes each end of the kayak paddle much shorter from the hands to the blade than on a canoe paddle.

Kayak paddles work great on canoes that are narrow where the paddlers body is close to touching the sides/gunwales. Third seats tend to be in the middle of a canoe at it's widest point.

We use 3-man canoes all the time on our trips. Almost always the 3rd person tends to be a kid and usually they just have a regular paddle to make them feel like they are part of the 'team'. To be honest the 3rd person paddlers is mostly in the way, dragging their paddle, slowing things down and breaking up the paddling rhythm of the bow and stern paddlers.

Many time the 3rd paddlers in our canoes end up with no paddle at all. They are just along for the ride. Sometimes between portages, the 3 people in the canoe switch places taking their turn in the leisure seat.

Nice spot to troll from though...

Well, the folks at Spring Creek probably know their stuff. I would have to add that it would probably need to be a really long kayak paddle given how wide the canoe is in the middle.

I've done two trips with 3-man canoes. In both cases, the people in the middle were normal size adults, they had regular canoe paddles, used them the whole time, and we did just fine.

I'm gonna go with LMB on this one. There's probably not a definitive source on the subject. The dynamics are about the same no matter what paddle you use.

I have used a kayak paddle on a canoe with a spring creek seat and it worked great. better in my opinion than a canoe paddle. I used a 240cm paddle length which is what I use for my kayak, I would have preferred slightly longer for the canoe, either 250 or 260cm.

I have gone on trips the last two summers with scouts and we have used a three man Alumacraft canoe for one of the canoes due to having an odd number people in our group. We have had good luck with the middle paddler and the stern paddler paddling on opposite sides while the bow paddler uses a long kayak paddle. Using this set up the three man canoe can go much faster than the tandem canoes and also is very maneuverable.

I had a thought about this, and this is semi ridiculous but you could really make some time if you turned the middle guy around and rigged up some oar locks let him row. Got no idea how you'd do it, it just popped into my head.

quote maxxbhp: "I had a thought about this, and this is semi ridiculous but you could really make some time if you turned the middle guy around and rigged up some oar locks let him row. Got no idea how you'd do it, it just popped into my head. "

I believe that Spring Creek does make oar locks and paddles that make a canoe into a row boat. It's kind of pricey but can be done.

I think I remember a thread talking about this and the fact that this setup would be illegal in the BWCA because using oars gives the rower a mechanical advantage.

When we have three in the canoe the center person is told to just sit back , fish and enjoy the ride. Never seen any benefit with the middle person paddling.

quote walllee: "When we have three in the canoe the center person is told to just sit back , fish and enjoy the ride. Never seen any benefit with the middle person paddling."

In my case, I've left out the drop-in center seat (all right, I'll admit I forgot it) and had the center guy just lay back against the packs. Lowers the center of gravity and is comfy. Also, it could be a possible rest position in a rotation. One negative would be that it might be a hard position to fish from.

Spring creek has a Canoe/Kayak Paddle Spoon. that works really well for this

The third paddler just needs to keep active whether or not any real forward motion is generated. It will also keep him warm instead of riding mostly motionless in cooler or cold weather. The benefit is not the forward progress added as we are really not too concerned whether we average a higher speed.