Boats: Rowing Oars

Saturday 17 November 2012

Rowing Oars

In rowing, oars are used to propel the boat. Oars differ from paddles in that they use a fixed fulcrum to transfer power from the handle to the blade, rather than using the athlete's shoulders or hands as the pivot-point as in canoeing and kayaking. Typical Sculling oars are around 284 cm - 290 cm in length, and rowing oars 370 cm - 376 cm long. The shaft of the oar ends with one flat end about 50 cm long and 25 cm wide, called the blade. The part of the oar the oarsman holds while rowing is called the handle. While rowing, the oars are supported by metal frames attached to the side of the boat called riggers.

The parts of an oar are (labelled from outside the boat first): spoon, loom (or shaft), 2/3 of the way up is the sleeve(including a wearplate) and button (or collar), and at the very end the handle and grip.

An oar is often referred to as a "blade" in the case of sweep oar rowing and as a "scull" in the case of sculling. A sculling oar is shorter and has a smaller blade area than the equivalent sweep oar.

There are hundreds of different variations of oars, but "Macon" or "Cleaver" blades of carbon-fiber are the most common in modern sport rowing. Classic oars were made out of wood, but since the use of synthetic materials, the weight of an oar has come down from over 7 kg, to less than 2.5 kg.