With an interest in history and a little prodding Dave Curtis, I have started building a set of cruiser paddles.  These paddles are built to be the absolute best that I can do.  They are NOT built to be super durable rock crunchers, the blades are as fine and thin as I can make them and still have the stiffness the blade needs, the shafts are built to be strong and stiff enough ie-with a little flex, without any extra weight.  The grips are full, a combination Canadian palm, Maine northwoods and a little Pat Moore thrown in.

The blades are partially fiberglassed and the dynel edge is not quite knife sharp.  The shaft has a light fiberglass sleeve as I have seen many paddles that are well taken care of with a nicked up shaft and this will resolve that problem.

So how do they work?  I sent one of the Honey Islands to Mark Molina in Florida as it was still frozen here and he is one of the top paddlers in the country.  He said it is a significant improvement to the original Honey Island and very comparable to his Quimby and Pat Moore  Cue.  By my standards that's pretty select company.  I sent the first sample of the small cruiser to Dave Curtis and one of his friends  liked it better than her Quimby, Dave almost didn’t get it back and it was promised to his wife.  My conclusion is that I’m on the right track.

The cruisers come in three sizes, SMALL(it doesn’t have a name yet) a modified Dave Curtis design that has an 8” by 21-1/2” blade with small shaft and grip.  It comes in shaft lengths from 30” to 33” .  Next is the Sugar Creek Special, another Curtis design it has a 8-1/2” and 22-1/2” blade and larger shaft and grip. The shaft sizes are 33”-36”.  Finally comes the Honey Island Cruiser II, a full 9” by 24” blade with  a yet stiffer shaft but the same grip and shaft lengths of 34” to 36”

Some History

 The Honey Island Series of paddles  have an interesting history.  The original Honey Island Cruiser was produced by Blackburn Designs in Atlanta as a large blade cruising paddle when the smaller and more efficient solo cruising canoes were introduced in the early 1980’s by Curtis, Sawyer, Blackhawk and Moore.  The original designer was Mickey Landry from New Orleans.  It was named after a swamp outside of New Orleans that Mickey liked to paddle and developed with much input from Dave Curtis,Tom and John Blackburn  and others..  It was adopted for use by the early freestyle paddlers but the Pat Moore style with softer shoulders gained favor.  It was  changed into the Lutra Pro by going to an S-curve blade  with fuller shoulders and a bent shaft of either 2-1/2 degrees or 14 degrees that was last produced by Mitchell Paddles.   At the bottom of this page are pictures of several generations of the original Honey Island Cruiser as well as an early Lutra Pro.   I got the designs from Dave Curtis in two blade sizes: the smaller intended for shaft lengths up to and including 33” and the large blade for lengths over 33”.

All paddles use a book matched  all cedar blade with dynel edges, a cedar edge is too tender and using hard woods makes the balance problems worse as well as having a very difficult transition to shape between the hardwood and cedar. The blade has a continuous taper to keep the blade stiff.  The intent is for the paddle to have some flex just above the base of the blade. The shaft is a cedar/ash layup with a thicker ash core in the Honey island blade.    The grip is not epoxied as on other paddles, it has one coat of Watco Exterior Oil then very lightly sanded  so that the owner can use their choice of oil on it.

Specification:

Small:  Blade 8”x 21-1/2”, weight about 21 oz for a 32” shaft paddle.  Shaft Lengths 30”-33”

Sugar Creek Special:  Blade 8-1/2” x  22-1/2”, weight about 23oz for a 33” shaft paddle.  Shaft Lengths 32-35”

Honey Island Cruiser:  Blade 9” x 24-1/2”, weight about 25 oz for a 35” shaft paddle.  Shaft Lengths 34”-36”

 Price:  $245--each paddle is made to order and customized for the individual. This includes a fleece paddle sock