Gibban

A neighbour in the building caught me loading some paddles into the car and inquired about the hobby. Turns out she needed a gift for a paddling friend and another commission came my way. In this particular case, she snuck into her friend's place while she was out of town, grabbed her paddle, and asked me to replicate it. From the shape of the paddle, it looked to be similar to a Grey Owl Tripper - 58" long with a 27" blade and a 6-1/4" width. This one had a Black Feather branding on the blade face, but I couldn't find a Black Feather paddle company on the net. Instead, I'm assuming it is the logo of Black Feather Adventure Company , a wilderness outfitter based out of my hometown of Toronto. I almost signed up for their Arctic Canoe excursion down the Soper River last summer, but opted for Arctic Watch instead. What intially struck me about the paddle's design was that the wide & thick blade surface coupled with a thin 1" shaft and a small pear ...

In a current temporary exhibit at the Vatican Museums, dozens of models of watercraft from numerous nations and cultures are presented to represent the diversity and interconnectedness of humanity. (See our previous post on this exhibit.)  The models are displayed in glass cases (hence the poor quality of the photos that follow) with little explanatory material.  We present our photos with the scanty information from the exhibit cards in quotation marks, and our own brief observations in parentheses. We invite readers to contribute additional information about any boat in the Comments. Only models representing craft from "outside the Western tradition" are included here. More images of other models from the exhibit will follow in a subsequent post. As always, click any image to enlarge. "Japan: Sailing boat" (looks like it would be highly capable in surf) "Indonesia: Sailing boat with outrigger" -- (actually two outriggers. Although the rig is set as a squ...