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Most people give little thought to selecting a proper pair of oars for their boat and its rower, who might be themselves or someone else, and generally end up hating to row, because so many bad decisions were made, explicitly or through default.
As a proper literature search will suggest, several thousand years of propelling boats with paddles and oars means there's little that needs to be re-discovered. Just do the same as has been done before by people who had to row because their livelihood depended on it, and you're likely to end up with a satisfactory recreational solution (if it's fixed-seat rowing you intend), which involves answering (at least) the following two questions:
Expected sea conditions?
Desire for speed vs. ease of effort?
Specifically --and in no special order, since all factors influence each other-- these questions need to be answered:
How well does the boat carry?
What's your preferred stoke-rate?
What sea conditions are you trying to optimize for?
Preferred grip-style, blade-style, loom-length, and oar-balance?
How/where will the oars be stowed?
To what extent is robustness needed?
To what extent does cost/complexity need to be avoided?
Most people have never had to rig a boat so that it can be rowed easily and well. But it's an exercise that deserves as much care and thought as the design of the boat itself, and the choice of a pair of oars --bought off-the-shelf or fabricated in one's shop-- is as personal as selecting the footwear one hikes in. What I like and use probably won't be what another prefers. Hence, each would-be rower must make their own choices, which will need to begin with a literature search, and these are some names to consider: Bolger, Culler, Gardner, Welsford, Murray. Specifically, What did they say about rowing? From your own experience, do you agree?
Charlie
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