Wooden Boat People

By McKenzieDriftBoat.com

oar lock location along the gunwale.

My current project is not a wooden boat but, I was wondering if I could ask for favor from some of you.

I am currently working on an all composite boat. The bottom is 3/4 inch honeycomb and the sides will be 1/2 inch. The gunwales will be 1/2 inch higher then the honeycomb side panels and the space in between will be filled with a 1/2 inch filler piece. The plan is to drill straight down through the center of the gunwales for the oar lock mounting socket. A hole will be cut into the side panel for the bottom of the oar lock shaft.

Because the honeycomb is not solid, I will be cutting out a segment and filling it with a 1/2 inch plywood block. This will be drilled out for the socket. The image will show what it will look like. This means I need to locate the oarlock position before the side panels are mounted, while they are laying flat. I was wondering if someone could measure one of their boats and get the total length along the top edge of the plywood from stem to transome and also the location along the same line to the socket. This would help me get an idea of where on the flat sheet it will go.

I have measured my current 16 footer and the oar lock is at 110 inches along the curve from the stem and the total lengh is 216 inches making it 2 inches forward of the center mark.

Was wondering where others have their oar locks.

Attachments:

gunwale.jpg, 55 KB

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Permalink Reply by eric stevens on October 5, 2010 at 9:22am

I am excited to see pictures of this project, my oarlocks are at 120 " pulling from the front with a total of 214" on the gunwhale. Are you going to make the transom out of plascore? Also i was wondering what you are going to do for a stem. I have been thinking about doing this same type of build and not sure how i want to do it. The other question i had was can you put screws through the plascore side pannels into the temporary form?

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Permalink Reply by lhedrick on October 5, 2010 at 3:31pm

The transom will be plywood and the stem will be white oak.

It's no problem putting screws through the plascore.

Thanks for the oar lock information. I seem to like having my oar locks a bit more forward then most people. I will be putting in 2 sockets.

The only real issues I am still working on are the decks and hatch covers. I will be posting photos on a web site when I get the side panels mounted and will post a link. As this is a wood forum it's not really the place to be posting details on a composite project.

L