What's up with bent shaft paddles?

With a regular straight shaft, your wrists are offset inwards from their natural alignment, and your control hand, goes back and forth in this offset position through a range of movement as you so as you take each stroke. This can contribute to wrist fatigue, varying from slightly annoying to full-on debilitating. For people with persistent wrist issues, a bent shaft paddle may offer significant relief.

Werner Paddles held back entering the bent-shaft market until 2001, when they introduced their Neutral Bent Shaft. They spent a large amount of R&D time developing the optimum combination of performance, strength, and weight. Manufactured in-house by Werner, this shaft uses a proprietary new process of forming high quality carbon fiber and epoxy resin resulting in the strongest bent shaft for its weight, anywhere.

Coming up with a neutral bent shaft that had the correct configuration and alignment of the shaft, paddlers grip, and blade took time, but judging by the significant increase in Werner Neutral Bent Shaft Sales at Aquabatics, our customers

So what do paddlers think about the Werner bent shaft? We spoke with Darrell Weibe, who is a member of Canada's Whitewater Freestyle Team and a coach for Team Alberta Kayak, Alberta's Junior Freestyle development team. Darrell's paddle of choice is the Werner's neutral bent shaft with the Foam Core Double Diamond blades in a 194cm length with a 30 degree right hand control offset. Darrell switched to a bent shaft paddle six years ago and has been using a Werner Neutral Bent Shaft for the last three. "To me the bent shaft feels more comfortable than a straight shaft and I don't get any wrist problems. The Double Diamond blade flows through the water with no fluttering. `When you plant a stroke it has good purchase for playboating. I've used this paddle for two years; it's tough, in fact it hardly shows any wear".