{"id":653,"date":"2013-03-19T21:33:24","date_gmt":"2013-03-20T01:33:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thebigrow.com\/?p=653"},"modified":"2013-03-19T21:33:24","modified_gmt":"2013-03-20T01:33:24","slug":"on-oars","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.thebigrow.com\/?p=653","title":{"rendered":"On Oars"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I recently read Eric McKee&#8217;s book &#8220;Working Boats of Britain: Their Shape and Purpose&#8221;, London: Conway Maritime Press Ltd: 1988 (reprinted from 1983), ISBN 0-85177-277-3.\u00a0 It is a very good book, and I highly recommend it to those who are interested in boats.<\/p>\n<p>Of first note, the book is very much about <em>boats<\/em> and not ships.\u00a0 Moreover, it is about working vessels, rather than pleasure craft.\u00a0 This gives it a focus that is much more in line with my interests than most books.<\/p>\n<p>There are many superlative details in the book, but of especially interest is the section on rowing geometry and on oars.\u00a0 I highlight only a few of the points from pages 135-139.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Oar lengths tend to be twice the beam of the boat when used in fresh water sculling, a foot shorter than this when rowing side-by-each, and up to three times the beam when pulling (using a single oar).\u00a0 McKee notes that David Steele says that these lengths are 2 1\/2 and 3 1\/2 times the beam in the early 19th century.<\/li>\n<li>Blade area tends from small, short, and wide in protect inland waters to large, long, and narrow in open rough water.\u00a0 There is a chart on page 136 that shows typically blade areas versus length and conditions.\u00a0 A 10&#8242; oar used in river conditions has a blade than averages 3\/4 sq.ft in area, whereas in open water the area the average is more like 1 1\/4 sq.ft.\u00a0 The area varies 1\/4 sq.ft.<\/li>\n<li>Freshwater blades are roughly 1\/5 the total length of the oar.\u00a0 Saltwater blades range from 1\/4 to 1\/3 of the length, with the longer for rougher conditions.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>McKee lists a number of points for the geometry of thwarts, thole pins, and foot placement.\u00a0 When constructing a new pulling boat, it would be good to consult his figures.<\/p>\n<p>I note that his figures are what actual working craft use, not some theoretical model, racing shell, or pleasure skiff.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I recently read Eric McKee&#8217;s book &#8220;Working Boats of Britain: Their Shape and Purpose&#8221;, London: Conway Maritime Press Ltd: 1988 (reprinted from 1983), ISBN 0-85177-277-3.\u00a0 It is a very good book, and I highly recommend it to those who are interested in boats. Of first note, the book is very much about boats and not&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-653","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-oars"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thebigrow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/653","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thebigrow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thebigrow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thebigrow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thebigrow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=653"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.thebigrow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/653\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":656,"href":"http:\/\/www.thebigrow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/653\/revisions\/656"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thebigrow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=653"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thebigrow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=653"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thebigrow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=653"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}