Jan 28. Glass the Oars

The book on oars I read shows a method to measure the flexibility of an oar, which is good to a point to relieve the stress on the body. But the boats and oars in the book were mostly Adirondack guide bots or Rangley boats, which, if you know your boats, are narrow beam, light boats meant to be to be portaged from lake to lake in upstate New York. Therefore in order to get enough inner loom for leverage they typically overlap the handles. Plus the flexibility of the oars is necessary because these boats are often used for a full day's pulling across lake after lake, sometimes into a headwind. This requires limber oars to relieve the constant stress. 

But our boat has a wide beam and drifts with the current of a river with sporadic rowing to position the boat. It's more like biking than walking in that you need lots of power for short periods and very little most of the time. Whereas rowing on flat water is like walking, in that you apply power all the time, walking up or down hill. 

Here is the method used to measure the flexibility of oars. I don't have a picture showing the whole setup, just the tip with the weight, but essentially you immobilize the paddle at the handle and the "button" (the oarlock) and then hang a 7-pound weight from the tip of the oar. Then measure the flex of the oar at the end of the loom and the tip of the paddle. I used a clamp and a half-empty can of paint for the weight, and the a-frame stand behind is for measuring the deflection. 1 1/4" in this case. 2" would be better for a full time pulling oar, but I think that's ok for a drift boat, whose oars are much less flexible (I'm guessing). 

Pine is light flexible wood, so I'm adding a layer of 6 oz fiberglass to the boar and the outer 2' of the loom. I'll let you know how well the oar works out.