Carlisle Magic Plus 2-Piece Kayak Paddle

The fiberglass shaft take-apart Carlisle Magic Plus (a.k.a. the "Simply Magic" or just plain "Magic") is still a fairly strong axe for the money, though a couple years back the blade thickness and stiffness decreased a bit. We really preferred the older ones. At this point they don't seem that much better than a Clear Blue Hawaii ("CBH") Makaha paddle, though the Magic shafts are rougher in texture so they have a better grip than the CBH's. This paddle comes out of CanoeSports in New Zealand so it's not really a true Carlisle product. Due to low sales on 240cm paddles across the board, we won't be stocking anything but the 230cm and 220cm in this particular paddle. If you want a 240cm, the CBH Makaha is a decent substitute and we do carry those in the larger size most of the time. We have never carried 210's in any brand since the Innova Safari and Tomcat LV are really the only models we sell that would work with a paddle this short.

The 90"/230cm length seems ideal for most of our paddlers, and the blade design on the Magic lends itself equally well to both whitewater and touring. It weighs 2 pounds, 10 ounces. The glass filled plastic blades are quite similar in shape to the asymmetric spooned Cannon Wave blades in this section, and about 1 cm narrower. The RS Magics come in orange-red, and the cloud blue shown in the photo.

The fiberglass Magic shaft has a contoured grip for right hand control only, though the shaft itself is not actually ovaled like Cannons products. Lefties will need to form an oval grip as discussed in the introduction to the kayak paddle section. Magic paddles have an offset of 60 degrees when feathered. For $109 you get a high strength, well designed unit. Please note that the color pattern on the newest ones is a bit different from the design in our photo.