designing a fast rowboat

Ramona, unless you are looking for the joy of building, there are a considerable number of used oars available on the aftermarket. Call your local rowing club or the nearest uni with a rowing team. They will have phone numbers and access to oars. There are also some sources online for rowing equipment for sale. I think there are a few Craigslist sites in your area as well.

E

 

at last!

put the new boat in Sunday for a test "dunk" not a launch, as it is bad luck to launch without a name. No surprises, good or bad, floats about where we thought it would. Still need suggestions on a good Nordic name. Possibllities now are for our grandfather " Ole A Melbye", or perhaps " The Oslo Codfish Co." for the test dunk she was " The Sea Clamp" Lots of work to have it ready for the Weir river Race on Oct. 27th. Floorwork, Thwarts, flotation chambers gunwales, oarlock sockets and foot stretchers, not to mention a ton of sanding, fairing filling and painting. We'll race her if structurally complete if not cosmetically finished

 

Looks nice. Ok, if you're after Norse names there's one I was thinking of using a while ago for a boat I built. "Galdra Kona", Old Norse for witch or sorceress.

 

dunk

the girl in the back ground clearly was wondering what the hell we were doing and watched the whole process. for the record, i'm in the blue hat

 

I have read this thread with interest as i am a lover of good rowing boats and am in the process of designing one.
In 2003 a few of us started a rowing club up on the Thames estuary, it is now starting to take of, We have looked at all the other types of racing rowing boat used around the coast of the UK and they are a varied lot!
In order to get the club going i took two old simulated clinker fishing skiffs and rebuilt them, in the process they became 26ft long from 18 ft, last weekend they took part in the Great river race in London a 23 mile race and did quite well.
Several things struck me when checking out the competition, many people insist on trying to make a racing rowboat compact ie short.
They make them too narrow at the gunwale so long oars cant be swung.
Above all they make them too heavy.
There were two classes i found interesting and both are worth looking at
The Welsh Celtic longboats and the Irish coastal rowing federation Celtic yawl, both boats are about 24-25ft long and pull four oars, they have a thriving racing scene and really move.
The Celtic yawl in particular is a lovely design by Rob Jacob and is a true production one design
For us on the Thames we have come up with a specification and the new design is well advanced. Length about 27ft beam at gunwales 54" i am trying to keep the waterline beam down and the design has moderate rocker to assist fast turning in our congested waters.
I am using Delftship, which i have found relatively easy to get on with though at times i tear my hair out!

 

UK rowing

congratulations for starting a new organization! It sounds as if you will be rowing larger boats with 4-6 oarsmen, similar to the Scilly Gigs. You are pretty far along in your design process, but a look at the gigs will help to confirm your design. Safe Walrus also suggested a design called a Flashboat, supposed to be very fast and to be rowed by 3. you might look at that design also. It seems to me, just from what I read here on the forum, that in Europe there is more of an emphasis on rules and class boats. We here in New england are only starting to look at that option. A rating system for the boats that considers length, beam, and weight seems to be a possibility. Arriving at an acceptable formula may take time as we have very few organizations or clubs to spearhead the effort. An idea about handicapping popped up after one race but doesn't seem to have much support. After all, when you do your homework, study the course, know the water and innovate and improve your boat and equipment as well as train hard (or hardly) why should you want to be beat on time by a Sunday rower who doesn't do any of that? Send along some of your design work or better yet some pictures of your converted fishing boats so we all can see what you are up to. Regards, Jeff

 

Hi Jeff, The Great River race is unusual in that it is run on a pursuit basis all boats being handicapped according to a computer program that supposedly calculates every boat's optimum performance.
The slow boats start first and there is over an hour spread until the fastest ones go, in an ideal world all boats should finish together but never do!
One of the reasons for the ICRF Celtic yawl being built was that there were lots of different designs in Ireland with hardly any clubs running the same boat, the introduction of a good one design has rejuvenated the sport in Ireland with in the region of 50 boats being built in the last 5 years.
On the East Coast the traditional coastal rowing scene is in its infancy but we figure a one design has to be the way to go, incidentally several clubs on the south coast have said a four oared boat offers the most value for bums on seats! Here is a photo of our two converted angling skiffs moving to the start line in saturdays GRR

 

Postscript to the previous post
Yesterday we took part in the Round Northey island race on the River Blackwater. With a very strong crew our converted skiff did the 5 miles in 32 minutes to take line honours, this is as fast as she is ever likely to go being quite wide on the waterline but was a good day out!

 

A 9.4 knot average over 5 miles? Goddam that's fast. Was there an assisting current or breeze?

 

I worked it out at an average of 6.4 knots, which would be about absolute maximum speed, this has also been checked by GPS on several occasions, the course we rowed on saturday is partly against the tide and partly with so i reckon we could disregard the tide, the water was calm.
Times were taken by us and the organisers, even so she is still quick for her type. It must have been the Maldon Gold quaffed by the crew first!

 

speed

6.4 knots is a damn good time for a conventional boat. Search for Blackburn Challange online to find times in a 21 mile open ocean race, and I think, there are pictures of the huge variety of boats entered. As further food for thought, there is a series of books named "Building Traditional Small Craft" by William Gardner. in one of the books there is a set of lines from the 4 oared gig "Lafayette" which competed in an international rowing competition between Britian and the USA around the turn of the century. There is an interesting commmentary as well. might be a good possibility. If my brother and I could find two dependable crew members we have thought of building a copy in glued lapstrake plywood. Problem is that we're too intense about competition for most people to put up with us.

new boat now has been structurally joined and reinforced, seat risers are in place and work on the flotation chambers is under way. A decision on floor boards and gunnel construction has been made. looks veryy good to have her in the water for the Weir River race (6NM) on October 27th. She is so similar to our current boat except in length that we are confident that our rowing stations are close to correct and will be good enough to allow us to row well in the race. Fine tuning can happen later on. What is doubtful is if we will get in any practices in it before the race. Secondary problem is that we are devoting rowing time to building time with total loss of time on the water

 

Something else i just noticed that might be of use to anyone building a fast rowing boat.
In the Great river race boats are not allowed to have sliding seats but i noticed the Welsh Celtic longboats have very narrow thwarts that appeared to be barely four inches wide, each rower sat on a very thick & comfy looking cushion. As they rowed along the rowers apeared to be using this as a semi sliding seat in order to get a longer stroke their feet were strapped in and the cushion must roll back & forth over the narrow thwart.
The rowers of Australian surf boats also slide on their seats but they dont worry about a cushion just wedge up their speedos and slide on the shiny grp seat, not so sure i would like to do that for long though!

 

non sliders

We are wondering about setting up seats that can rock fore and aft a bit, as much to ease pain as to further speed. could work if done right. I'm a bit uneasy about being strapped into my boat by my feet and would not want any foot restaints.

 

Two things:

The english used to use leather flaps or trousers, which they would grease along with greasing the thwart to allow some sliding. This was the precursor to the sliding seat boats, and allowed the rower to use a longer oar, thus increasing his gearing and ability to put muscle mass to work. It would be a very traditional way to gain some extra pull, and you could definitely have some fun with it.

Secondly, footstretchers and clogs are a very good idea, and are not generally tight enough for you to be caught in them in the event of a capsize. If you make them with leather uppers and laces, they are rather easy to slide in and out of, will help you make a strong return to the catch.

These are the stretchers and clogs I built for our boat:



Note that you have a ton of room to slide in and out of them, and can leave them as loose or tight as you feel comfortable. These are purpleheart uprights, yellow pine dowel stock for spreaders, teak clogs and leather uppers.

E

 

You gave either the wrong distance or the wrong time then. Was the distance five miles? Was the time 32 minutes?