Here is a question: I recently lost my motor while navigating the harbor channel. I began to dream of adding oarlocks onto my boat to use in emergency situations. Has anyone given any thought to doing this or has anyone actually done the job?
An eight-foot oar with blades removed will slip into the cabinet beneath the sink and slide back so that the aft end rests against the bulkhead at the aft end of the cockpit. Easy storage of oars now assured, I am even more eager to build some oarlocks.
Of course one could merely screw oarlocks onto the coaming boards, but that would be inelegant, and add a tripping hazard. I want to build a removable unit that will strap to or clamp down upon the stainless steel winch platform. I have designed a unit to be made of wood, a few one-inch strips of stainless steel, and some bolts and wing nuts. The oarlocks will be mounted on this unit approximately eight inches above the winch platform to allow the oars to clear my lifelines at a steep enough angle to permit the use of eight- foot oars.
Before I begin this project, has anyone else out there installed oarlocks for rowing oars or a single oarlock for a sculling oar? And just how much fun was that?
Use one oar mounted in the winch and put a bungy on the tiller ,It works great .
I use to row a 28'ketch like that.
8' is a bit short for the oar , do a 12' that is in 2 pieces with a sleeve that joins them .
Try this , get a 12' 1x2 board , ballance it on the winch top , bring one end inboard to the center of the cockpit , now lower the other end down to the water surface . A much easier angle to row with , now pull it in 4' so you have an 8' oar. The angle now is very steep and will wear you out on a heavy boat. The good news about the heavy boat is, when you get it moving , it doesn't take much to keep it moving , like a stroke every 10 seconds at most .
The longer the oar the more power with less effort.
If you want a one piece oar , stow the oar on the boom or vertical in front of the mast.
James Baldwin has a link off of his site dedicated to a whole society of enginless sailors. Seems that an oar is a very useful tool to them. I think his site is yachtatom.com or something like that. I'm sure any search engine will take you there. You may find some useful info there. Tony G
Thanks for the great info. If I understand what you wrote Mike, the tiller a single very long oar will keep a long keel boat going straight if the tiller is secured with a bungee.
Thanks for the lead on the oar site Tony. The URL for James Baldwin's site about his Pearson Triton, "Atom" is: http://www.yachtatom.com/
There is also a yahoo! engineless sailing newsgroup. I have not checked it out yet.
It looks like some interesting reading on the Oar Club site. This site has information on oars, self-steering and a number of other topics. However, it appears to be a non-text site and does not load well in Netscape. So you might want to use MS Explorer to access it. Also watch out for the infernal pop-up windows.
I guess I better look for some longer oars Mike. You are right about the steep angle on the eight foot oar. It is steep. I tried out the angle using my extendable boat hook with the winch as a base. With an eight foot pole the angle is very steep, but at nine feet it is a bit more reasonable. Certainly, twelve feet would be much preferable if I can find a 12 footer in sections. Actually, a sectional oar could double as dinghy oar with one or more of the sections removed.
Perhaps the Oar Club will have some sources for me. I had thought of vertical storage in front of the mast, but I had not thought of the horizontal storage on the boom.
Personally I would rather store my oars below if possible, but an oar on the boom would be handy.
The NRS Online Catalog: http://www.nrscatalog.com/product_list.asp?deptid=237 has some interesting products, but they appear to be designed for river rafting. The ten foot two part oar with a single one foot extension, or two one foot extensions could do the trick, and still fit below. Am I nuts?
Last edited by Scott Galloway; 04-10-2003 at 10:06 PM.
Thanks for the vote of confidence Tony. You'll all be laughing when I row my Ariel to Hawaii! ...and in other news, here is an e-mail bulletin that I received from a Triton owner who believes in the cause of the human auxiliary:
"There is an article with all of the info. for mounting oarlocks, selecting length, and stowing the sweeps, as well as manufacturer links in the group files of my yahoo! newsgroup, http://groups.yahoo.com/group/engineless_sailing
Look in the 'tech topics' folder for "sweeps 101""
I bought Dave's Commander (280) when he picked up a Triton. The boat came with no engine and two oars. Dave made no modifications to the boat for paddling; he simply wrapped 1/4" line around the oars where they rested on the combing to limit rubbing. He fashioned a loop at the cord's end and draped it over the winches to secure the oar. Seemed to work, but as the loops stretched, the oar control became a bit sloppyl. I always thought the best solution would be to have a freind with a machine shop make an oar lock that dropped into the splined socket on top of the winch. Probably a very expensive answer to a very inexpensive idea.
As far as actually using the oars, they work swell under windless conditions but, as Dave can attest, spell trouble to windward (can you say breakwater?). Dave still wants his oars back and being fat, lazy and 40, I'm inclined to return them (for a small fee) and go with a motor.
A very interesting coincidence: you having Dave's old Commander.
My Ariel, and I assume your Commander, has stainless steel platforms for the jib sheet winches.
The device that I am contemplating will bolt onto this winch platform and present an oarlock at eight-inch height above the platform. This means that the oar will clear the winch. No new holes will be made in either the stainless steel winch platform or in the coaming boards.
By my calculations, this will present an oar to a standing, forward-facing rower at mid chest height. The winch could remain operational during oar operation. I am going to make this device from inexpensive wood and some inexpensive hardware store zinc-plated steel parts. If it works, I hope make a permanent device from fir, or teak and stainless steel. The assembly will bolt on quickly using bolts with wing nuts.
My intent is not to go engineless, but to develop an emergency system that would permit me to enter the harbor, and row to my slip, or perhaps to row away from an anchorage or away from a bad situation where it is not practical to use the sails in the event of a motor failure.
Last edited by Scott Galloway; 04-16-2003 at 04:12 PM.
Anyone out there install oar lock sockets on their Ariel or Commander? My intention is to have a set of oars (sweeps) onboard and ready for use in emergency situations.
I searched the Yahoo Engineless Sailing Forum. I found a number of good ideas there including this photo of oarlocks on a Pearson Renegade's rather large integral winch bases, but haven't found the perfect solution for placing oar locks on an Ariel on that site.
I am curious if anyone else has installed oarlocks on an Ariel or Commander, and if so, where and how the oarlock sockets were installed. Photos would be helpful. It seems to me from my experimentation that installing them as close to the rail as possible would be best to provide better balance for the oars, and that they should be installed in a location close to the jib winches, but not so close as to be in coflict with them. Standing facing forward while rowing seems to be the preferred approach.
Haven't done it on an Ariel , but on others. Get the shafts of the locks machined to fit the winch sockets and it couldn't be easier or stronger and no new holes in the boat. BTW, You only need one oar to move a boat like this , but it needs to be long , like 10 to 12' .
Sculling with a single oar sided off the rear of the transom is probably the best way to move a heavy boat like the Ariel. The Chinese invented the yuloh which is a crookt oar that makes it easier to scull with a higher freeboard. A bent oar would tend to be shorter. Sculling would require less width, less effort. less noise and (they say) would net a more manuerverable vessel. Didn't Larry Pardey write a book on the subject?
(Have to trice up the boom, wouldn't you? For either method. But maybe you could scull off the rear deck or a little more forward astraddle the seats over the tiller? Shorter oar too. Be great if this was an added safty feature that would allow one to get out of trouble if the engine died - even with the sails bent on. What you say???)
It would be fantastic to see photos of this on an A/C
Seems to me that Mike's double oar lock location is righton. Higher up and out of the way of other gear would allow the oars to be pushed down and brought in to 'house' them on the deck to get them out of the way - which you'd want to do real quick. And you'd most likely have the oars captured in ring oar locks so they would not pop out at the wrong time - and you could let them dangle as well. However, think the single oar is more shippy, and more appropriate in crowded places.
I installed them, use 11' carlisle sweeps. I put on a lanyard so they don't go away.
I like Mike's idea of installing them in the winches.
Tried to upload a couple pics, this thing says they're already in thread 'exterior wood finishes'. (page 3, #45)
My winch bases are not stock however.
I used the top plate mounts, drilled over sized hole, added epoxy, coated oarlock stem with wax, and inserted. Nice fit.
Topping lift for the boom makes it nice, i have brought her into the slip with a sheet in both hands, main over my head, boom in the way, and trying to row. Learning curve is steep. They do work great on a calm day though. The 11' carlisle's are good for fending off also. Nissan 6hp works best when the wind is up. If it starts. I actually like sailing her in the best. Less to worry about.
I have read the theories, including Mr. Baldwin's sculling write-up for his Triton "Atom", but for an emergency rowing system, I decided on sweeps rather than a sculling oar for my application. Although sweeps are reportedly more tiring to the user, they reportedly can achieve higher speeds and greater thrust for short distance emergency use, which is my intended application. I am not so interested in rowing into the slip as I am about staying off the rocks and away from shallow water. Normally I rely on my Nissan 6 hp, but I experienced a total unanticipated failure of a previous Honda 7.5 in the harbor channel a couple of years ago with no oar or paddle onboard and no wind to speak of at the time.
Ebb, your suggestion about sculling makes me think that it might be a nice idea to add a third oarlock station at the stern to allow sculling in tight quarters. I suppose that one of my 11-foot sweeps might work in a pinch as a sculling oar. I'll have to try that.
Willie, I own a pair of eleven (11) foot Carlisle sweeps. They break down into two sections less than six feet each, with the blade included as part of one section. The blades are also removable. These sturdy oar parts will store easily beneath the cockpit. I found that photo of that oarlock that you posted on the "exterior wood finishes" thread. I have reproduced the relevant part of that photo below.
I made a prototype to test various positions for the oarlocks on my Ariel, and from messing around with my oars using that prototype, I would say:
1.Yes, the boom is pesky if you try to row standing up, but not sitting in the bridge deck facing aft, Of course you can't see where you are going. So standing facing forward with the boom end lifted somewhat by the topping lift would be the way to go, or just try to deal with the boom at its normal height for short distance emergency rowing.
2. I have read various approaches to using the winch handle sockets as oarlock sockets. But, based on my experiments, I would like my oarlocks to be further outboard if possible: Balance and leverage being the operating principles here.
It sure would be nice if Mike's idea of using the winch handle sockets as oar lock sockets would provide an adequate balance point for 11 foot oars on an Ariel given the relatively narrow space (62 inches) between coaming boards. That provides 31 inches (two feet seven inches) of non-overlapping oar shaft inside the oarlock and 101 inches of oar shaft outboard of the oarlock. Too much? I don't know. My experiments with my crude prototype indicate that 40 to 41 inches (three feet four inches to three feet five inches) to be the minimum comfortable (at least for me).
3. Very nicely varnished wooden winch and cleat support boxes like the one featured in the photo below taken by Willie would solve the problem, but my Ariel has small stainless steel winch bases like the one in the second image below, so that leaves me with the problem of locating the oar locks outboard of the coaming boards and at or above the height of the jib winches.
Last edited by Scott Galloway; 09-12-2005 at 11:08 PM.
Below is a photo of the small stainless steel winch base on my Ariel. I am giving some thought to a heavy-duty steel triangle (1.5 inch wide stainless steel bar stock) that could be bolted either permanently or temporarily with wing nuts to the outboard side of the winch bases. I envision the triangle to be ten inches high with a three inch horizontal base (on top) extending outboard about three inches at the approximate height of the top of the winch. One and a half inches of this horizontal "base" would form the base of the triangle and one and a half inches would extend beyond the hypotenuse of the triangle. On this one and a half inch extension, an oarlock socket would be mounted. This would provide a distance of 84 inches between oarlocks, and locate them well outboard of the winches but slightly inboard of the rail at what seems like a convenient height for rowing while standing and/or sitting.
I have no way of knowing whether or not this actually makes any sense unless I drill a few holes in my nice shiny stainless steel winch bases, which for merely experimental purposes, I am loath to do. So, I hope that someone out there has already gone through this already and can offer some helpful suggestions and/or photos of a successful Ariel or Commander oarlock installation. Willie, yours looks great, but the large winch support platform on yoru boat is the key to yoru elegant approach, and I don't have such a platform.
The other alternative that I am considering is to make up a Genoa track mounted oarlock socket, but I am concerned that to obtain the height that I need any device that I might design would place excessive torque on the track.
Last edited by Scott Galloway; 09-12-2005 at 11:05 PM.
There was a discussion on this subject in April 2003 (Search: Oarlocks).
Here Scott has more info and Mike explains his one oar / tiller-bungie method of propulsion more fully.
I'm all ears on this subject. And those of us like Tony & me who have their boats disassembled will be able to place oars locks in the best position. At the moment, sitting on the bridgedeck and rowing backwards (with, of course, a couple rearview mirrors that slip over the winches) is out of the question. Think the oars would have to be too long!
Loosing power unexpectedly in a rocky channel with no wind and a current running would be glandular. One oar instantly deployable would certainly be a blessing! Especially if you knew how to use it! I never liked rowing because of the backward position!
From the choices so far, I lean toward one oar. assembled, a stand up position and three oarlocks outboard of all fittings. Maybe with the oarlock permanently ON the oar, so it is just slipped into whatever housing.
A yuloh with its bent shape might stow better on deck. But you can't ROW with that. Think I'll oneday try sculling off the back with a regular 'sweep'.
I wonder if the brits with all their small sailboats and shallow water don't have a readymade winchtop oarlock off the shelf?
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Oar locks on an Ariel
