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Since 9/11 carrying paddles in hand luggage has become a bit more
difficult for obvious reasons. This is going to look like a commercial, sorry if it offends but this is the best system for flying with paddles! I've flown to the US 3 times now (with British carriers) and always take my own paddles. I use Lendal Paddlok splits in 4 pieces and usually get 2 sets in the back of my boat (had to carry 4 sets this time as I had some new ones for the others!). If you can't or aren't taking a boat a 4 piece paddle should fit into your checked luggage quite easily - it will be x-rayed to make sure it's nothing dangerous but in the hold it's no problem! Many of you are probably wondering what the heck Lendal paddlok splits are? Lendal are a paddle manufacturer based in Scotland who make IMO a good range of paddles for both sea and whitewater (although they seem to be mostly used by sea paddlers over here). Their patented Paddlok system involves a special arrangement in the button where you can insert an allen key and tighten and expanding piece in the shaft to make the inner shaft grip the outer one tightly. I've been using these for 3 years and have rarely had the shaft slip at all, and then simply tightening a bit more has sorted it out - they feel exactly the same as paddling with a one piece paddle. Of course they are a little heavier than an equivalent one piece, but if you get carbon/nylon or carbon composite blades the construction is light enough that this doesn't matter. By the way, the carbon nylon blades are easily the strongest available for the weight, the straight nylon 12 might be even tougher but are heavier (and cheaper). As far as blades go, the Kinetic range contains some aggressive asymmetrics developed from a british race paddle, the mania comes as symmetric or asymmetric as a general purpose style blade while the newer mystic and fusion blades are designed for surfing and rodeo. I have used kinetics as splits for 3 years with manias as my spares (only needed them once) not only on my US trips but also for a lot of stuff in Scotland (which is hard on paddles!) and have recently got a set of superlight mystics (one piece) for my new main paddles. LENDAL do have a distributor in the US (Scott Lynch I think) and are apparently growing in popularity - if your local store doesn't have them ask them to try and find out about them because for flying I really wouldn't use anything else (even if airlines let you take one piece paddles they often manage to break them). The only problem is that they are growing in popularity and the factory gets a bit overwhelmed with orders from time to time :-) If you find anything else as good for flying with - spill the beans! JIM Mary Malmros wrote: (doug) writes: American Airlines provides a list of sports equipment they allow without additional charges. Kayak paddles is not on the list. Put it in a padded ski bag and don't offer any information. I've taken a paddle on American several times. (I also took four, count 'em, pairs of skis back from Denver last March in a single bag, hee hee hee) |
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