rowing rigs, forces of nature

Discussion in 'Boat Design' started by brucegseidner, Feb 15, 2014.

  1. upchurchmr
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    upchurchmr Senior Member

    The limited knowledge I have says slidding riggers were introduced50-60 years ago (probably for the nth time) and they were outlawed for racing.
    Advocates say it was because they were more efficient.

    As far as I know moving the body has much more effect on the speed/accelerations during a stroke rather than moving only the oars, rigger and the legs - probably a 4 or 5x effect.
    One noticable effect is that you have to pull your oar, rigger, legs toward you. A different motion than letting the body roll down a slight incline while pulling the body.
    I don't have any expertiese in the overall effect, but technique for sliding seats has been refined for a long time. It might take a little work to get equivilent technique for sliding riggers.

    All I can say is that my very short boat shows little effect from weight shift.

    I would suggest that sliding seat rowers have the same ability to lean back for power delivery.

    Realistically it does not seem to be much of a difference on the rowing stroke mechanics. An Amatures opinion.

    Thanks for the comment. If I was doing it again I would trim up the square case to make it look better. Virius boats has a similar system which looks much nicer to me.
     
  2. Skyak
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    Skyak Senior Member

    Thanks for the reply. I figured sliding the rig beats sliding the seat but since I never did it I wondered if I was just missing something. It looks slightly more difficult to build mechanically but I am convinced it's a better way. Do you think it would be prohibited in races like the Blackburn Challenge?
     
  3. upchurchmr
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    upchurchmr Senior Member

    Sorry but I have no information on Blackburn.
    Olympics ban the sliding rigger - I believe.

    Hopefully someone who really knows competitive rowing will give you better information.
     

  4. ancient kayaker
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    ancient kayaker aka Terry Haines

    I looked through the thread but didn't see an actual answer to your question - if there was one ignore this post.



    That sounds about right for an athlete during a sprint although way above my grade.

    There are 3 horizontal forces acting on the oar: the thrust of the blade against the water, the pull exerted by the rower and the reaction from the oarlock. The relationship between them depends on the leverage ratio of the oar. This reasonably authoritative source gives 7:18 but the actual ratio would depend on the rig:-

    For the above examples, the pull force = blade force / leverage ratio = 40 X 18 / 7 = 103#, and
    the force on the oarlock = force on the blade + force on grip = 143#

    note: the use of outriggers or a sliding seat does not change the calculation
     
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