Guy Dresser | Royal Canoe Club - It’s the invention you never knew you needed. It’s certainly a world first – a paddle with a built in power monitor, to tell you how much effort you’re putting in and whether you need to put, well, a bit more in.

The device is supposed to do for kayaking what some bicycle speedometers do by monitoring your output and helping you set the right pace and even paddle at the appropriate speed during a race.

I’m sure it’s brilliantly innovative and all that but I personally always found a GPS/heart rate monitor combination does the trick – and this paddle power meter doesn’t seem to be offering to read my heart rate for me.

I don’t know but if I could ask for one piece of paddling technology it’d be some sort of paddle-powered energy generator built in to the paddle, something you could take and use to maybe heat a kettle for free while I’m having my post-session shower. Now that would be an innovation worth having.

The Kayak Power Meter from New Zealand-based One Giant Leap is due out in September. Prices start at US$830 (plus shipping). That’s just for the two-part carbon fibre shaft (pictured), to which you have to secure blades with a hot glue stick (included). Compatible devices have to be bought on top.

We say: GPS monitors with built in heart rate detectors are available for a fraction of the $830 proposed charge.