oar design

[Brent]

The sailing trip Tuesday evening ended with a long paddle home. The wind died as the sun went down, which was the same time the corps of engineers decided to open the dam. So we were ghosting upriver making 1.5 knot over the water in a dying breeze in a 2 knot current.

The cheap paddles I had thrown on board "jsut in case" got bothersome quickly.

So I am looking into oars.

A web search delivered the 25/7 quide for oar length, suggesting a 10-11 foot oar for a CS20.

http://barkleysoundoar.com/oarinfo.htm

Sounds like a lot of oar. What does experience suggest?

I am thinking of building a set out of common spruce 2 by lumber with laminated spruce and cedar blades.

Your thoughts on oar design are invited here.

[Terry Dunn]

I am also interested in what people have to say about oars. However, it may be a little late for me since I bought some for my CS20. I bought oars from http://www.lucidstyle.com/islandoars/. I was going to buy 8' but Paul suggested 9' or 9'6" after I described what I panned to use them for. I went with the 9' spoon blade oars. The were shipped Purolator in a tube and were on my porch in 4 or 5 days.

I tried the oars out last weekend. They work good. 9' sounded long to me but the spruce oars are light and easy to handle. Longer would probably be OK. West Marine has a formulae for oar length. Page 212 in their catalog. 1/2 beam * 3 + 6" (34" * 3 + 6" = really long oars).

I want to try my 9' oars on my S10. That should be fun.

I think the island oars and barkley sound guys are both on the East side of Vancouver Island B.C.

[Charlie Jones]

Here's links to several websites with instructions and info on making oars.

http://www.instantboats.com/oarmaking.htm

http://marina.fortunecity.com/breakwater/274/2001/0215/index.htm#ROWING%202001B

http://www.bateau.com/free/simple_oars.html

[Brent]

I built a yuloh out of some scraps and tried it out this weekend. The concept works nicely, but will require stronger wood than the construction grade spruce, which cracked at a knot.