Recently retired my old paddle after 20 years - warped, very beat up, with patches from replacing damaged wood. Found a few red cedar rough-cut 2x4 at Lowes. Decided to follow Free Video Course: Building a Greenland Paddle (thinkific.com) Long paddle - 89" x 3 1/8". Loom is 21" to keep my knuckles off the combing. 1/3 of blade from tip is parallel sided, then straight to fairly small shoulders (easier to slide my hands around). Feels like a pretty big paddle.

Paddle drives my Looksha very well. Still considering an Aleut style, trying that out. The tips are too squared, I'm getting a little oddness from water flow at the tip. So I'll round those a bit more. Blades are also pretty stiff, might thin them a bit.

One of the characteristics I was careful to control was the lenticular foil cross section. Another was the fairly thin edges.

Entry is rather easy, very quiet, the too-square tip has a very slight tendency to entrain some air if entry isn't pretty much perfect, but that's not an issue. Easy to control blade angle. Exit very quiet.

I swapped with a fellow paddler, used a nice carbon Werner. This really liked a lot of power put in, and worked nicely as a wing paddle sweeping out.

So I tried my new Greenland paddle more like a wing paddle, simply putting a bit more power into the rising blade, letting it sweep powerfully towards the surface, then relaxing as it exited. A bit of futzing around and I had the upsweep angle right. Clear boost from the rising blade. Ended up with a bit of a leg push during that blade rise. This was very easy to do, and I got a nice flying sensation. Distinctly more effective. Had the old tank Looksha going very well.

Watching the blade, with substantial area and a good clean foil, I could see how the lift was keeping the blade from sliding back very far. Mostly the blade goes in, takes up power, and lifts. Pretty cool, very clean. I'm pleased. My previous paddle with thinner blades (different design) wouldn't develop this kind of clean lift.

I'm going to mod this one a little bit, change the loom shape very slightly, plane out a little wood to get just a little more blade flex, and get the tips a bit less square.

Fun project, and changing my technique just a bit.

I'll still make a ribbed paddle, and probably a flat sided paddle.

Highly recommend this kind of project. Maybe I'll post images if folks are interested.