9.8″ Jim Terrell Quickblade Hybrid Paddles at Wet Feet

[singlepic=2957,125,188]Doug Lock of Wet Feet shows us the new Jim Terrell hybrid paddle from Quickblade and talks briefly about the blade's design.(click thumbnail to launch video)Evan Leong: What are we looking at?Doug Lock: Yes, these are Jim Terrellrsquo;s new hybrid paddlemdash;carbon shaft, carbon t-handle with a fiberglass blade. This particular blade, this orange one is actually a bigger blade than this normal stock. This one is a 9.8 as opposed to normally he makes a 9.0. And he just sent me two proto-types. These are them and I tried the big one first.Evan Leong: So these are not in the market yet?Doug Lock: No, they just came out. Well, they just came out. We just started selling them this week.Evan Leong: Are the blade designs different at all?Doug Lock: No, blade design is the same, the same shape. Itrsquo;s just that this one has a larger area, this, of course, a .8 difference from this.Evan Leong: So he still puts dihedral in the bottomhellip;Doug Lock: Same design yes. Dihedral still in the blade and I particularly like it because of the smoothness it goes through the water. After talking to Terrell, he was saying that Dave Kalama likes to paddle with a 10.0.Evan Leong: 10rsquo;0rdquo;?Doug Lock: 10rsquo;0rdquo;, yeah. So he made a 9.8rdquo; for me to try and I tried it and now this is a paddle I like to use.Evan Leong: So thatrsquo;s the one yoursquo;re using now? Even for surfing?Doug Lock: Especially for surfing.Evan Leong: Really?Doug Lock: Yeah. And a lot of people like to go with a smaller blade but Irsquo;ve been finding that I feel like this blade, since it fiberglass, it has more flex.Evan Leong: Letrsquo;s see that.Doug Lock: So if you look at the carbon you can see the flex in the blade itself. This is of course the shaft bending as well but there is definitely more width with the blade than there is in the shaft which almost is kind of like a swim fin theory. When yoursquo;re kicking, the end of the fin is flexing where the part of your foot is more stiff. It was kind of a theory I was thinking, it worked. I mean Jim wanted to make something kind of morehellip;Evan Leong: These handles are kind of cool.Doug Lock: Yeah, I just put EVA foam on them, comfortable. You donrsquo;t get those mean callus.Evan Leong: This is cool too, this Kialoa handle and shaft.Doug Lock: Yeah, I havenrsquo;t tried that paddle yet but this shaft and everything is just unreal, yeah. Beautifully done.Evan Leong: The shaft is nice on this thing.Doug Lock: No doubt. This to me is a very comfortable feel but itrsquo;s got ahellip;I like the way it is done, very nicely done.Evan Leong: The swing weight on this thing is pretty nice.Doug Lock: Yeah, yeah.Evan Leong: Irsquo;m wondering on this blade though. If you look at the blade itrsquo;s flat on the bottom.Doug Lock: Thatrsquo;s going to be interesting. Irsquo;m so used to a dihedral I got to bring it on and see what it does. But yeah, with the flat, a lot of people are liking the flat.Evan Leong: Interesting huh?Doug Lock: Interesting, everyone has got their own theory, which is pretty neat.Evan Leong: So the big blade is not throwing you off when yoursquo;re surfing?Doug Lock: No it doesnrsquo;t. I thought it would because it is such a big blade. I thought I was going to be better as a downwind blade and it probably will be but it seems like to me so far that it has been great for surfing. I have yet to bring it down the run and see how that feels too. Itrsquo;s easy on the shoulders. They didnrsquo;t feel so rigid. It felt it has a really nice flex to it. Not too flexy.[gallery=72]