Feel for Jake , travels halfway around the world and his paddle snaps. Hope he bounces back in the distance.Well done to the hubby wife team of Angie and Jacko. Jacko second Angie 1st.

The face says it all in the pic doesn't it. Must have been quite crushing.

Yeah poor bugger , he has been training his arse off and this was a good event for him to pick up some points on his quest to win the series. He,s made of good stuff though hell bounce back.

Mmhhhh

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Towny said..

Mmhhhh

????????

I wonder how many people here look at there paddle shafts for nicks, scratches etc

"I wonder how many people here look at there paddle shafts for nicks, scratches etc"

I do..

I also feel very sorry for Jake..

He's probably used that paddle heaps and put in hundreds of strokes without a problem.

I wonder if the airlines caused damage to it without him knowing.

I wonder if he's just too damn strong..

On fly back from my last surfing trip, i didn't protect my paddle sliding it in plumbing plastic pipe like i usually do : my paddle cracked

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teatrea said...

Towny said..

Mmhhhh

????????

That's so heavy for him, I'd maybe look for a paddle specific sponsor with a proven track record with paddles

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Towny said..

teatrea said...

Towny said..

Mmhhhh

????????

That's so heavy for him, I'd maybe look for a paddle specific sponsor with a proven track record with paddles

Yeah Towny, and that pic is a such good advertisment for those proven brands.
I can just imagine that pic with the text inserted at the bottom saying, "spewin, I shouda used a brand x".

I hope you have better luck next time Jake.
You must be gutted.
Chin up, just keep going, you'll get there.

What a difference a day makes , LOL

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Towny said..

teatrea said...

Towny said..

Mmhhhh

????????

That's so heavy for him, I'd maybe look for a paddle specific sponsor with a proven track record with paddles

Really this is the kind of comment that has no thought put into it at all!!!

Jake has used that same paddle for about 6 months with out a issue paddling just as hard as he did on that day and has not looked like breaking it so why would it just break for no reason now?
Maybe it could have something to do with the 2 big metal rings here wears on each of his hands that could be over time putting a stress in the paddle at that point? maybe it could be from the travel? some times there is more to the story!! yes it was a bummer for Jake and he was spewing but it also taught him some lessons that **** happens and just get on with it!!

I have used the Fanatic paddle for over 2 years only breaking one being a dick-head and i like to think i can load a paddle up as much as most new or intermediate paddlers so why aren't i breaking more if they are **** paddles? I have sponsored riders buy these paddles who paddle for other brands as well as a well know board maker in Aus buy and use Fanatic paddles and the reason is because they are one of the best!!

Pic of some of the load from my paddle in the last lot of sprints.

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KennyK said..

Towny said..

teatrea said...

Towny said..

Mmhhhh

????????

That's so heavy for him, I'd maybe look for a paddle specific sponsor with a proven track record with paddles

Yeah Towny, and that pic is a such good advertisment for those proven brands.
I can just imagine that pic with the text inserted at the bottom saying, "spewin, I shouda used a brand x".

I hope you have better luck next time Jake.
You must be gutted.
Chin up, just keep going, you'll get there.

You think brand X does not break? then sorry mate maybe this is the wrong sport for you!! all paddles break.

Don't take this the wrong way but your comment above is just stupid, can you name me one brand that has never had a paddle break? i want to find out who are these brand X paddles are so i can sell them with no fear of one coming back to me ever broken!! and if Brand X thinks there paddle wont break like i have seen from one brand hinting at on hear then he will be in for a rude shock!!

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teatrea said..

What a difference a day makes , LOL

Yeah how good is it!! he was so close to winning with only half a board length in it, stoked he came back like this after yesterday!!

Heaps of pics on Jakes, mine or the Fanatic SUP facebook page. Really tight racing here and everyone is so close even the draft train is a full battle now with some crazy aggressive paddling going on and full battles which makes it awesome to be a part of, can't wait for the next one.

Oh i bet Jake and some of the boys dont feel so good this morning..LOL

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paul.j said...

Towny said..

teatrea said...

Towny said..

Mmhhhh

????????

That's so heavy for him, I'd maybe look for a paddle specific sponsor with a proven track record with paddles

Really this is the kind of comment that has no thought put into it at all!!!

Jake has used that same paddle for about 6 months with out a issue paddling just as hard as he did on that day and has not looked like breaking it so why would it just break for no reason now?
Maybe it could have something to do with the 2 big metal rings here wears on each of his hands that could be over time putting a stress in the paddle at that point? maybe it could be from the travel? some times there is more to the story!! yes it was a bummer for Jake and he was spewing but it also taught him some lessons that **** happens and just get on with it!!

I have used the Fanatic paddle for over 2 years only breaking one being a dick-head and i like to think i can load a paddle up as much as most new or intermediate paddlers so why aren't i breaking more if they are **** paddles? I have sponsored riders buy these paddles who paddle for other brands as well as a well know board maker in Aus buy and use Fanatic paddles and the reason is because they are one of the best!!

Pic of some of the load from my paddle in the last lot of sprints.

Isn't it just a fact that paddles break regardless of brand, just unfortunate his chose the middle of a race.

Yeah all paddles break, some just seem to break a bit more often thats all.

Great pics Matty Boi.

Close finish , don't know where they get the energy to paddle like that after a long distance race.

Close finish , don't know where they get the energy to paddle like that after a long distance race.

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Towny said...
Yeah all paddles break, some just seem to break a bit more often thats all.

or maybe more of one brand is sold than others so thats why you hear more of them breaking?

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paul.j said..


I have used the Fanatic paddle for over 2 years only breaking one being a dick-head

I remember that!

Wasnt that in a vid when you road over it with your pushy?

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RJK said...

paul.j said..


I have used the Fanatic paddle for over 2 years only breaking one being a dick-head

I remember that!

Wasnt that in a vid when you road over it with your pushy?

Yeah I was heavier back then

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paul.j said..

Towny said..

teatrea said...

Towny said..

Mmhhhh

????????

That's so heavy for him, I'd maybe look for a paddle specific sponsor with a proven track record with paddles

Really this is the kind of comment that has no thought put into it at all!!!

Jake has used that same paddle for about 6 months with out a issue paddling just as hard as he did on that day and has not looked like breaking it so why would it just break for no reason now?
Maybe it could have something to do with the 2 big metal rings here wears on each of his hands that could be over time putting a stress in the paddle at that point? maybe it could be from the travel? some times there is more to the story!! yes it was a bummer for Jake and he was spewing but it also taught him some lessons that **** happens and just get on with it!!

I have used the Fanatic paddle for over 2 years only breaking one being a dick-head and i like to think i can load a paddle up as much as most new or intermediate paddlers so why aren't i breaking more if they are **** paddles? I have sponsored riders buy these paddles who paddle for other brands as well as a well know board maker in Aus buy and use Fanatic paddles and the reason is because they are one of the best!!

Pic of some of the load from my paddle in the last lot of sprints.

Any product you buy has an effective 'service life'. Cars, washing machines, TV's, toasters and paddles. The cycle of paddling has a paddle being highly loaded then unloaded in less than a second in some cases. Take the case of these professionals where if they're not racing, they're either training or they're on a plane, so you have a near perfect storm where these guys (and girls) are placing higher loads in faster cycles on paddles many more times a day or week than your average punter which in their case maybe a 'lifetimes' work of a paddle in 6 months or less.

Paul J may have hit the nail on the head when he said Jacko may have used the paddle for 6 months - albeit probably for hours a day 5-6 days a week or more. For your average punter, the 'service life' of these paddles could be years. The life of many carbon products are measured in 'cycles' and in the case of a paddle will be how many times it is loaded and unloaded. I am sure the Fanatic paddles have a service life measured in the hundreds of thousands of cycles. The issue is with these elite athletes is that 'service life' is reached in months, not years. Four hours of training a day at 30 cycles per minute, 5 days a week is 36000 paddle strokes. Multiply that by 26 weeks (6 months) and your answer is 936000.

It is quite possible that the paddle wasn't damaged, it simply died of old age despite it only being months old.

As a below average hack (with a lot of experience building stuff in carbon), I'd be suggesting these guys replace a paddle at least every 12 weeks if not less.

Great post, Magillamelb. It's a very good point. Tennis players change their racquets very frequently, and travel with loads.

But the two things that stand out to me about paddle breakages are that (a) people disproportionately experience breaks when on foreign trips, and (b) that some people seem to break paddles frequently whereas others rarely if ever (I've never broken one in 7 years of SUPing most days).

These suggest to me that there are very frequently human factors involved in breaks. Moreover, the second observation may interact with Jacko's point. He said that some paddles may appear to break more often because more of them are sold. Well, maybe the kind of people who break paddles tend to favour certain brands, because of things such as price, visual style, susceptibility to certain marketing strategies, availability, location of dealers (eg. maybe urban dealers sell to people with more disposable income who therefore take less care of their gear) and so forth.

Without formal stress testing of paddles it is always going to be a complex matter to try to disentangle human factors from product ones.

On the first point above, someone needs to come up with a hard case for paddles for travelling. With the top paddles now costing half as much as many boards, if I take two or three paddles on a trip with me, it's serious investment to protect, not to mention the ruin of a holiday if you have a board but no paddle.

With all this talk about paddles having a 'shelf-life' I heard recently that Mel Pu still has (and regularly uses) his original Kialoa Shaka Pu paddle that was named after him and he's a huge guy and it must be about 4-5 years old at least... I have paddles that are years old that I trust 100% ..

IMO the average guy can buy a high quality carbon paddle and it should last many years.. if not a lifetime.

For racers that train hard and push their paddle with 100% effort (for 100% of the time it's used) those years might get reduced to only months.. Maybe these top athletes should carry a second brand new paddle to the big comps and pull it out of the plastic just prior to their big race.

DJ it's more a 'cycle life' than a 'shelf life' I think. The more you load a paddle up, then you theoretically shorten it's number of cycles it can take that load. If you lightly load a paddle you will most likely extend the number of cycles the component can take. There are other factors to consider as well like whether the resins are UV protected or not and so on. Some paddles may be somewhat over engineered and with light use can appear to be 'bullet proof'. I'm not sure whether some of our equipment in our sport is engineered or its just years of experience that determines how a product is made and how many layers of fibre and what type of fibre and resin system is used. Whilst we tend to look at whether something is made in fibreglass or carbon in most of our equipment, most people think there only one carbon, when in fact there are many different types of carbon, just as there are several types of fibreglass and several types or classes of resin system with great differences in cost between each.

The 'cost' of that broken paddle in terms of the overall result is probably many times more than the paddle itself.

Talk to windsurfers about carbon masts, it happens. A knock, dropped, not enough wetting out, bad batch, bad luck etc etc.
Thousands of masts out there, percentage is low. Paddles are the same.
Brand bashing is not the solution.

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ka43 said...
Brand bashing is not the solution.

Who mentioned any brands ?

I would be delighted as a manufacturer if I can produce an elite level paddle that is good for the best part of a million hard paddle strokes. My posts are not about brand bashing. In fact I have 2 Fanatic paddles and love them.

Even if Jakes paddle was in mint condition, there's a reasonable chance he simply wore the poor bloody thing out just through the sheer hard work he puts in to achieve his success.

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ka43 said...
Talk to windsurfers about carbon masts, it happens. A knock, dropped, not enough wetting out, bad batch, bad luck etc etc.
Thousands of masts out there, percentage is low. Paddles are the same.

+1

As for failure due to cyclic fatigue of carbon/composite material, I say this is rubbish. Carbon fibre has infinite life as opposed to Aluminium. Alu paddles will fail with certainty after a while (alu windsurfing booms keep breaking partly due to fatigue). Carbon fibre used in airplanes and bikes for that same reason and more.

IMO, most failures are due to:
- poor quality control (if any in some factories , always conflict of interest for a factory doing its own quality control)
- a knock, dropped etc (very much doubt wearing a ring or two would do anything to the paddle)

Interesting video below (Trek bikes, back when they were made in he US...):

My first paddle snapped right where my wedding ring was positioned on the shaft when paddling. I actually noticed it for months that it was really scratching it up being inexperienced I didn't think much of it and kept forgetting to take my ring off. and then one day on a paddle it gave way . Coincidence maybe? But surely it had a lot to do with it..