Feet rowing in Vietnam

Can anyone provide me with measurements for optimal foot rowing?
JS

 

Shoe size 49.....?

 

Scale it from the drawing. That is a woman probably less than 5 feet (1.5 m) tall.

 

IMHO No. Nobody can tell you optimal dimensions because they depend on the beam, weight, and drag of the boat, the dimensions of the paddler right down to the weight of their leg and if they prefer a rowing or peddling stroke.

 

Compared to a usual,hand-rowed boat it's probably only the raised seat height

 

They make it look easy, I wonder how easy it is for newbie. When I tried a narrow sliding seat scull on my own prior to a single lesson I felt like I was channeling Jerry Lewis physical comedy and just couldn't get it going.
What I like about these foot rower rigs is they LOOK like you could use any large paddle and the "rig" is only some rope to hang the oar off a little pole. Oar has little ring to keep it from sliding out. Seems like oars could also be used with arms if seated low. I'm nuts about anything that is dual use, especially on small craft where space is premium.
Doesn't look like anything is particularly critical or needs a fixed or adjusted dimension, unlike sliding seat scull where proper fitting is a whole big thing. Doesn't even look like your legs need to be particularly limber.
I guess its on my list to get an old john boat and add ballast for stability (all these boats are carrying a load of several tourists) and try this out.

 

Very interesting. I wonder what motivated someone to try this technique. What are the (dis)advantages?

 

Usually boats were hand-rowed, but a time ago someone rowed with the feet and they found it's attractive for tourists. Now there are many feet-rowed boats.
One advantage is you have your hands free to do other stuff which might be the reason why people started feet-rowing before it was a tourist attraction.

 

Rower faces forward, rower's seated position looks fairly comfortable, and legs are more powerful than arms. Hands free, of course.

One thing that struck me was how short the oars are.

 

I want to see this technique in R2AK. Easier on the lower back than rowing, I bet. And for a engineless sailboat, easy to look forward and hold the tiller

 

reduces need for Drip Rings on paddles/oars which never really work anyways.

Was told by some old salt that if you row or paddle correctly you shouldn't need the rings. Something about how you flick the water off the double ended paddle that just came out of water because of speed of other end entering the water. But I never saw demonstration so maybe he was pulling my leg.

 

I'm all for leg power. I have a stern mounted paddlewheel.
https://youtube.com/shorts/X8V5THhOo1U?feature=share