BLUEMOMENT

We're off to partake in the joys of the SIPR in a couple of weeks time, and still haven't managed to track down a decent set of oars for when the breeze deserts us (blind optimism perhaps after the gales of last year). Our normal source of oars has rather unhelpfully emigrated to Oz, so if anyone has suggestions on where to find some - or doesn't mind lending a set if you have them - all advice would be gratefully received.

Don't have any "proper oars" , how about the back of the shed at your local rowing/sculling club??? Good luck in the race. I asked some serious fell running friends of mine if they would like to do SIPR one year on our boat - too hard they said!!

Failing oars - what about exercise bike extension to saildrive??

Steve

stevepick wrote:Don't have any "proper oars" , how about the back of the shed at your local rowing/sculling club??? Good luck in the race. I asked some serious fell running friends of mine if they would like to do SIPR one year on our boat - too hard they said!!

Failing oars - what about exercise bike extension to saildrive??

Steve

You may jest but I saw a jeanneau OD35 a few years ago equipped for the SIPR complete with sliding rowers seat one either side of the cockpit and a contraption hung over the back which looked like a bike connected with chains and cogs to a propeller. I got speaking to the skipper and he told me they could maintain 3knts during flat calms with 2 rowing and one on the bike, faster in short bursts.

How about a pair of ordinary oars pushed into an alloy tube? A couple of screws could be put in to stop them falling apart yet still allow them to be stored below in 2 parts to reduce windage.

When I did the event in the early 80's we used to borrow a pair of oars from Agecroft rowing club - there are also quite a few Universities with rowing clubs so it ought not to be too difficult to source some for a borrow - for the price of a few pints

It's going to be light winds and a heat-wave this year 'cos Marisca's not entered. We tried in 2007 (abandoned at Salen due to organiser panic, the odd runner going swimming and a wee bit of wind), entered but carelessly lost our runners before the event in balmy 2008 and, of course, won Class 3 last year 'cos everyone else but you and us wimped out.
You really need full length sweeps as anything shorter is only of use as paddles - good for about 2kts on Marisca. Sea Cadets leave them lying about in their boats and always have a spare and rowing clubs, as already suggested. If you find some you then need to fashion some form of rowlock and you will probably need a whip and a drum to extract full effort from your crew.

Good luck!

Thanks for the suggestions - think we'll try to get the Uni rowing club to help out, what with SWMBO still being a student.

Alloy tubes over existing oars not really a go - we have those lovely new oars on the dinghy that are 2-part alloy tubes to begin with, I think they'd just fold under the extra leverage.

Otherwise, we might dismantle the kids bikes and rebuild them as pedalos off the stern....

would one oar be any use to you ?

MrMcP wrote:We're off to partake in the joys of the SIPR in a couple of weeks time, and still haven't managed to track down a decent set of oars for when the breeze deserts us (blind optimism perhaps after the gales of last year). Our normal source of oars has rather unhelpfully emigrated to Oz, so if anyone has suggestions on where to find some - or doesn't mind lending a set if you have them - all advice would be gratefully received.

There's loads of large ones in Leith ... although describing them as "decent" might be stretching things a bit...

mr mcp - not sure re the current state of play anent large oars.
if the one i mentioned above is of any use please let me know soon as i will require to fetch it from aberdeen for whence i leave later this week.

little boy blue wrote:mr mcp - not sure re the current state of play anent large oars.
if the one i mentioned above is of any use please let me know soon as i will require to fetch it from aberdeen for whence i leave later this week.

Apologies, I missed that reply. Our local sea cadets appear to be able to lend us some, so we're off to take a look tomorrow evening - thanks for the offer though, much appreciated. Hopefully we'll be lucky with the wind and not need them though...

marisca wrote:It's going to be light winds and a heat-wave this year 'cos Marisca's not entered.

Would you mind awfully entering in 2011 please? The light winds and heat-wave forecast came entirely true, and as a result the race was much harder than 2009. I'd rather force 8 than rowing for 16+hrs over the weekend in 20+ degrees of heat.

On the plus side, after all that rowing, plus running the Mull and Arran legs I've never been fitter

Some very interesting designs for person-power this weekend. One of the tris had a pedal-power contraption off the end of the hull, looked like it drove a prop of some kind. Many variations on oar placement and type, and loads more option to fashion some kind of rowing machine on the stern. Quite a few of the people that followed our blog are serious DIY types and are apparently off crafting ideas for suitable systems for Ogun next year....