Kialoa Shaka Puu Stand Up Paddle (Part 1)

[singlepic=2857,125,188] Dave Chun of Kialoa Paddles answers questions about paddling technique, paddle design and performance, his all-new Shaka Pu'u paddle, and general concerns about the stand up paddle surf culture. Dave also talks about choosing the right paddle, which all boils down to intuition that tells what type of paddle is best for the stand up paddle surfer.We get to learn more about paddles and why design and performance are always relative to individual surfers.In the first of this three-part interview, Dave takes us through the process of building paddles and how they test the durability and strength of their products. He also compares the Shaka Pu'u to the Nalu.(click thumbnail to launch video)Evan Leong: I remembered we talked about this new paddle yoursquo;ve got, can you hold up the Shaka Puu, right?Dave Chun: This onersquo;s named to honor Mel for helping us so much with the design to check off on this thing. Because I live in Oregon, in flat water, I donrsquo;t have any way of really testing my product. Usually what we do in our shop, how we develop a product is we get an idea, we talk to the guys, they tell me things and then my job is to interpret what they are saying. Irsquo;ll build paddles and maybe sometimes (____). Irsquo;ll send them out to the guys and theyrsquo;ll tell me which ones they like. Right off the start, when Mel got this he was calling back the next day, ldquo;Holy smokes this one is a good one. I like it.rdquo; So what we did is we continue to test it because we have to make sure it is durable. We donrsquo;t like our stuff to snap, like I say, I donrsquo;t like that with a disclaimer on my product. We usually test for about a year. One time on the surf is not going to tell you anything about durability. Thatrsquo;s really something only over time you get to learn. We do have stuff that we do in house where we break the stuff. We call some of this the ldquo;Boeing Wing Testrdquo;, watched on Discovery Channel breaking a wing on a 747. Thatrsquo;s where we developed that test from. Theirs is littlehellip; not littlehellip; much more sophisticated than our method but basically we just hang a whole bunch of weight off the end of the paddle and see where it snaps. Because I have been doing this a long time, I have a lot of data on how much weight a paddle should be able to suspend, which I wonrsquo;t give you because I donrsquo;t want the other paddle makers to figure how much weight is enough put on a paddle.Evan Leong: So you guys are actually pretty high-tech then?Dave Chun: High-tech in a low-tech way. Paddle making, this isnrsquo;t big business, itrsquo;s not like wersquo;re making computers that everybody in the world has to have. We have a very small niche market so numbers are small. Even though people say stand up surf is exploding, itrsquo;s not like some of the other types of things. We try to be as sophisticated as we can. We understand also that there is a lot of errors involved in what we do.Evan Leong: How do you think that this stand up surf industry is comparing to the OC-1, one-man canoe industry?Dave Chun: I think it has a broader application. I think the surf culture is something more people know about and somewhat gravitate to. I think there is a lot of ex-surfers on the mainland, on land lock places like Iowa, have a beautiful broaden water on the lake and stand up might be a great way to reconnect with their surfing roots maybe even train a little bit for that trip they make to Hawaii once a year. I think it is a good thing.Evan Leong: So what is the difference this Shaka Puu and then your other paddle blades and then maybe whatever other people are using and so on?Dave Chun: I just give an example. Irsquo;ll just take probably the most popular paddle. This is the Nalu. By the way I was named after my dog. We no longer have that dog but that's how you get a paddle named after...