The Lightest Dragon Boat Paddle in production.

The Merlin Ghost is the lightest paddle we make at 270gms, in fact it is the lightest paddle in the world.

Custom made in our R&D facility in Sydney the Merlin Ghost is a study in weight reduction.

The shaft is taper laminated with the carbon layers reducing towards the top and bottom , this saves 40 grams over our CD2 shaft.

The front and back blade skin skins are moulded separately and then co-assembled around the shaft and a unique CNC machined aluminium honeycomb core. This technique is straight from the aerospace industry and allows for amazing strength to weight ratios.

Finally, the paddle is dust coated with 11 grams of paint, which gives it a pretty ordinary finish for such an expensive paddle, however this paddle was always meant to be a weapon, not a pretty accessory.

Being very light and very stiff, this paddle is difficult to control and it is not recommended for novice paddlers.

Weight: 270 gms


Specifications: Any length

Shaft: Tapered Carbon

Blade: Carbon with Aluminium Core

Price available on request.

Production is currently suspended because we are concentrating our efforts on the Excalibur Data Paddle System, both products are highly labour intensive and we are a small company, so something had to give.

The Ghost will be back in production late 2009, please accept our sincere apologies for this hiatus in service.





Construction


All Merlin paddles have a high pressure carbon prepreg shaft that extends most of the way down the blade, this is the main load bearer it is very stiff and is carefully engineered and tested. Over this shaft is laminated the blade, this is a low temp wet layup system designed for flex and toughness.



By separating the construction of the shaft and blade the performance of both units can be maximised and the paddle has a consistent flex with a resulting predictability in the water.



Merlin is currently expanding the Excalibur technology across a range of other paddle sports including rowing.

Kayak Paddles

In conjunction with Dr Margi Bohm at the University of Canberra we are currently Beta testing a Kayak paddle version of the Excalibur technology.

This unit is very similar to the Excalibur, except that it collects strain data from each end of the paddle. This gives you a curve for both the right and left blades. The other difference it that the 3 axis accelerometers are located at the centre of the shaft.

From mid 2009 we plan to be able to offer datarised 29.4mm dia carbon shafts as OEM parts to other paddle manufacturers of Kayak paddles.

Please email us if you are interested in this program and would like to be first in the world to have one of these Kayak paddles.

Rowing Oars

We've recently started fitting out rowing oars. Watch this space as there will be some major news and more details here shortly.




Main Website www.merlingear.com