Too much power

I went on a camping trip this weekend with Wendy's lab group.  All in all it was fantastic, with us lucking into some of the best weather you could hope for.  The downpour even waited until 15 minutes after we were in our cars heading home.  One of the most amusing parts of it was this:

I snapped my paddle with the intense force of my paddling.  RAWR!

(Let us not speak of the fact that the paddle was obviously old, grey, and the varnish was all falling off in flakes.  Surely that has little to do with it.)

Thankfully the place that rented us the gear gave us several extra paddles.  Perhaps this is the cost of doing business when you are happy to rent out paddles that are so beat up they are bound to snap under normal use?