I just found out that the KeNalu guys now have stock of this new Rail Saver Pro paddle guard..

Maybe they should call it PSP.. Paddle Saver Pro..

The blade edge protector will be available on the RailSaverPro Australia website very soon and also through many of the SUP retailers around the country.
If you can't wait, contact us through the website and we'll get ya sorted.....I don't think I'm allowed to post the website URL here.....you'll find us ;-)
And by the way RailSaverPRO and Ke Nalu are two businesses independent of one another.
Happy paddling!!

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Deano72 said...
The blade edge protector will be available on the RailSaverPro Australia website very soon and also through many of the SUP retailers around the country.
If you can't wait, contact us through the website and we'll get ya sorted.....I don't think I'm allowed to post the website URL here.....you'll find us ;-)
And by the way RailSaverPRO and Ke Nalu are two businesses independent of one another.
Happy paddling!!

Damn already ordered from Spain. They are waiting for me at home tonite tho. Will be interested to see them after some of the feedback here.

this is my first post and slightly off topic I know but I have a question regarding rail tape. I recently bought my first board an Alana. In an effort to keep her pretty as can be I researched rail tape and pre-purchased some railsaver pro. However when I took delivery of my board the shop had already applied some rail tape for me which I wasnt expecting. It seems good quality, thick and smooth, but it seems wasteful to have this other tape sitting around. What would be the consenses, should I remove the other tape and apply the Railsaver pro or will removing the other tape damage the board? Any tips on removal? The tape has probably been i situ now for 3 weeks. Cheers

If it works, don't touch it...
You will be able to use the RailsaverPro on your next board :-) ... or if this one peels off.

Some of the cheaper rail tapes are very soft and get nicks and tears very easly making the board look very ratty.. I would remove it while you can and put the good stuff on.. Once the shop stuff hash been on for a while it will be very hard to get off without possible damage.. Others might know better methods of removing it but I would try a hair dryer on hot and work from one end trying to soften it with heat and slowly peal working your way along the board.. This is one of the beauties of RSP.. You can always easly peal it off down the track and even re aply it back on after a ding repair or even transfer it to another board..

You sound like a sales rep
Ps got the RSP on my Bullet, good stuff

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Maxeeboy said..
You sound like a sales rep
Ps got the RSP on my Bullet, good stuff

Ha.. No.. btw.. It's the guys in Hawaii that use this stuff on their Bullets that got me on to it..

Thanks guys

Just got mine on. Before I applied it, I had a really careful look at the wear and damage on the electrical tape I had over our paddles. The RSP covered all of the areas on the paddle that matter. These are surf paddles and almost all of the damage and wear was on the bottom and corners of the paddles, where there was any.

Got some today.. Put it on.. Easy-peasy..and I took some pics..

It's weird they didn't make it long enough to stretch the entire length of the blade.

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JoffaDan said...
It's weird they didn't make it long enough to stretch the entire length of the blade.

That's so you still have to buy their rail tape, I reckon.

But I'd like to hear their explanation.

The bits that these paddle guards don't cover are exactly the bits that strike my rails most frequently. I'd have to run some electrical tape up the top half of the blade and onto the shaft. So if I'm going to that trouble I might as well just use electrical tape altogether.

Another possibility for these being so short might be that the RS Pro rail savers create a bit of friction against the paddle edge if you hit them. Maybe the rail guard would damage the paddle guard in this way, so they've just left the blade bare where it will strike the rail guard. So now it's just your carbon that gets cheese-grated not the blade protection...

I would have bought this stuff otherwise for sure. But the short length is a deal-breaker for me. Please re-think this RS Pro: produce this length and also a longer one for people like me who want the whole blade covered, and let's see which sells best.

Great pics though DJ and thanks for saving me some money!

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Area10 said...



Great pics though DJ and thanks for saving me some money!

You're welcome..

btw.. I'm thinking the main idea of a paddle guard is to protect the paddle..

In all the years of paddling and all the paddles that I've owned I've never seen a paddle with damage in the top half of the blade..

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Area10 said..
The bits that these paddle guards don't cover are exactly the bits that strike my rails most frequently.

Yes, one time I was lazy and didn't change the tape that was worn out, and my paddle got damaged in the place they dont cover.

I guess that they had ungluing issues, this is the tricky part where the edge is concave and the tape has a tendency to unglue from the tensions that pulls it away from the blade... too bad.

PS: now with tape, I use lateral strips and then cover with one layer of tape that goes around the whole blade. This way I have many layers where it hits the board, but only one layer at the tip for lowest turbulence. Works quite well.

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[b]DavidJohn said...

btw.. I'm thinking the main idea of a paddle guard is to protect the paddle..

You may be right, that that is their thinking. But most of us fit tape to our blades to protect our boards (and feet etc) not our paddles.

By coincidence, I noticed that the electrical tape round my surf paddle was worn through, and I've chipped my Naish Nalu 10-6. The tape is worn through at exactly the part of the blade that these RS Pro paddle savers do not cover, ie. the top of the blade.

So for me at least, these blade protectors would not protect blade or board at all well.

Ideally I think RSPro would make these in a wide variety of different lengths so you could find exactly the right one for your particular paddle. And then some kind of long collar -perhaps eg. heat-shrink - to go over the part where the blade meets the shaft would also be good. You can use plumber' self-amalgamating tape but it looks a mess and adds weight.

Or you could just rail tape your board?
ive always thought that taping paddle blades was more for protection against inadvertent paddle strikes from the bottom edge of the blade when swapping sides or in unstable conditions where you might hit the top of your board when setting the catch......................

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Kieranr said..
Or you could just rail tape your board?
ive always thought that taping paddle blades was more for protection against inadvertent paddle strikes from the bottom edge of the blade when swapping sides or in unstable conditions where you might hit the top of your board when setting the catch......................

Well, I use 2 paddles... but 6 boards :-)

Plus I will use bright tape on the paddle anyways to find them if I lose them (happens perhaps once a year, but without red tape it can be a 5-minute struggle to spot them in the surf before they wash up on the rocks)

It's up on the rspro Aussie site now.

www.railsaverpro.com.au

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colas said..

Kieranr said..
Or you could just rail tape your board?
ive always thought that taping paddle blades was more for protection against inadvertent paddle strikes from the bottom edge of the blade when swapping sides or in unstable conditions where you might hit the top of your board when setting the catch......................

Well, I use 2 paddles... but 6 boards :-)

Plus I will use bright tape on the paddle anyways to find them if I lose them (happens perhaps once a year, but without red tape it can be a 5-minute struggle to spot them in the surf before they wash up on the rocks)

I use 3 paddles(DW, FW & surf)and 6 boards. I don't tape my paddles anymore actually. I do make sure all my boards are rail taped though.
I rarely hit my board with the paddle anymore. :)
I do put a wrap of red tape at the handle though.

3M "Helicopter" tape which all after market products are based on is the best and least expensive by far. This .4" width x 10 yds. is perfect for paddles. I use a double layer, but a single is plenty. Make sure to use a bit of pressure (stretch) and a little more around corners. There's also a new packaging I have not tried that's 2x .5" x 36"; cheaper and should be perfect for a paddle or two.

I just took delivery of the RSP rail tape and the paddle edge protectors. Installation complete and looking good. I am looking forward trying both products.
What were they thinking when they determined the length of the padddle edge protectors? Way too short!!
Big whinge on the cost of them also! You could cut out about 30 of them from the area of the rail tape For nearly the same cost.

Being a bit frugal I split the jumbo rail savers lengthways. They are still plenty wide enough to protect the rails on my 9-6 wave board. Now I can do two boards or have a spare pair.

Hi Australian SUP Community —


Seabreeze always has some interesting SUP stories I like to keep up to speed on. I came across similar topics & just wanted to clarify on some confusion that seems to be going on in the Australian marketplace. I founded both Puka Patch & Rail Saver Pro, a Puka Patch product.

Despite what some might hear, Puka Patch is Rail Saver Pro & is why we have kept the name whilst the other like-branded name has since been changed to RS Pro…

I hope this helps with the confusion & integrity of the original Rail Saver Pro, a product that has been widely accepted through the Australian marketplace, launched many years ago by my Australian distributor Watershack Pty Ltd. On the subject of Jimmy Lewis -

Jimmy has been a supporter of our product since the beginning & still supports the Puka Patch Rail Saver Pro exclusively to this day.

The pictures posted in these forums stating Jimmy apparently switching to RSPro were from one of Jimmy’s international distributors without the support of Jimmy himself.


There’s a saying in the innovation world that the greatest form of flattery is when someone copies you, so I guess for many years now we’ve been doing something right by providing a quality product that continues to evolve. Confusing a market by copying your name to build another product is not flattery & definitely not innovative.


If you have further questions, please do not hesitate to contact my Australian distributor : rob@watershack.com.au

Thanks, Jon Mosher - Puka Patch & Rail Saver Pro

So Jon, do you have a edge saver as well? Seems a bit disingenuous to plaster all the local distributor (Railsaverpro.com.au) and call it dodgy.

I haven't tried the paddle blade stuff, I don't like to put anything on the blade. I did a lot of underwater filming and testing blades when we started Ke Nalu (sold my interest to Lane Mead a long time ago), even built a "water tunnel" that didn't really work for ****, and built a recording system to measure wobble, vibration and acceleration of the paddle blades while they're stroked. I can tell you that the car door edging stuff turns a $300 blade into a $100 blade. Might be able to dig up some of the traces from the testing. they were ugly. Electrical tape, and perhaps this new stuff doesn't do nearly as much, but it shows up. I couldn't ever feel it, but I could detect it.

the thing to remember with water is that it's 1000 times more dense than air, so if you want a rough idea of what some seemingly small change will do, magnify it a few hundred times and see if you think the change would have an effect in air. For example, a piece of that edge saver tubing 400 times bigger in diameter (looks to be about 1/4 inch) would be 100 inches--eight feet. Put an eight foot hose on the trailing edge of your piper cub and see how she flies.

My brother Bob (Stoneaxe) tried some new shaft tape from RSPro that looked interesting. I haven't tried it, but he seems to like it. It looks really trick, much better than my skanky hockey tape and wax.

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DavidJohn said..
I might be wrong but I'm thinking that the reason they are so short is because they are only meant to cover the edge on the lower half of the blade.. Like I've been doing with tape [see pic] and they come with two in a pack for two separate paddles..

Yes DJ, that's the intent.

But it is definitely too small for me. As I can see on the wear on my tape guards, I definitely hit a lot with the upper part of the blade (I dig the paddle deep for power).

You definitively want the larger version (the "Jumbo"), the normal is too short. I ended up putting the two normal pieces on a single paddle.

Otherwise the product is great, only drawback is the price, which I guess is due to the small quantities sold.

brightly colored 3m electrical tape works great and is cheap, so can be replaced often if need be

car door guard too thick--makes me think it would negatively affect paddle performance

The 3M car door protection stuff is no thicker than electrical tape. I've tried both the RSPro and the door stuff and they are extremely similar, except that the RSPro has a white line down the middle. It is also annoyingly short, and costs a fortune. I have RSPro on one paddle and the 3M helicopter tape/vehicle door edge protector on another and I can't tell any difference between them in use.

Not sure where I can find the 3M stuff locally, but i see it here:

www.amazon.com/3M-08582-Door-Edge-Protection/dp/B00650NY6G