I’ve seen bits and pieces of several Survivor TV shows over the years. Martha and the kids like to watch it on my Life Studies philosophy reading night. Quite often I happen in on an episode that shows the gang paddling a canoe in some tropical setting. Every single time I’ve seen canoeing—at least 3 times so far—they’re always using nice, custom “primitive” style paddles made with a hightech flair—they look like a combination of wood and carbon. Someone put effort into these paddles. They are also always BENT-SHAFT flatwater cruising/performance paddles.
…AND THEY’RE ALWAYS USED BACKWARDS!!!!!
BACKWARDS!!!!
This is bad.
It makes my eyes bulge out.
I posted about it at the official Survivor website but really who looks at that. How to let the production staff know what’s going on?
It’s like if a Vietnam movie had actors using, uh, flintlock rifles. Or if an Alamo reenactment movie used M16 machine guns. I don’t know, the gun people are big on having Hollywood people be accurate. It would be like if they used Indy cars in a movie about NASCAR.
It’s WRONG!
…What’s worse is that someone on that staff MUST be coaching the players to paddle WRONG every time.
This kind of paddle works really well when used THE OTHER WAY. Some player MUST have tried it and prefered it only to have a staffer “correct” them back wrong.
It’s just lame!
OK, sure canoeing is a minor sport.
…Sure, canoeing is the main way North America was even settled in the first place.
…Sure, probably only thousands of enthusiast canoers today know which way a bent-shaft paddle is used.
But it’s not rocket science!
The bent-shaft is a great paddle! It’s the best and most popular type of paddle used by real paddlers on flat water in N. America.
Hello, Mark Burnett and Jeff Probst: turn those paddles around!
