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Permalink Reply by Phillip Westendorf on August 11, 2015 at 7:38am

Marty,

The simple answer is most of us who have built a drift boat have made them, either to the plans for the boat or have improvised and added additional oarlock holes.  The are a bunch of questions needing answers before you can get a simple answer.  A picture of your current oarlock configuration would answer most of them.  

If you want to purchase them "somewhere" you'll need a detailed drawing of what you want or take the boat to a wood worker/boatbuilder.

If you have basic wood working skills and a few tools you should be able to make them.

G'Luck,

Dorf

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Permalink Reply by Rick Newman on August 11, 2015 at 1:55pm

You can also use UHMW ultra high molecular weight plastic, the same stuff cutting boards are made of. It is easy to shape with wood working tools.

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Permalink Reply by marty whipple on August 12, 2015 at 9:03am

THANKS FOR THE INFO HERE IS A PIC OF OARLOCK MOUNT. THE REASON I NEED TO CHANGE IS OARS SET TO CLOCE HARD TO ROW. HOPE THIS HELPS THANK YOU PHILLIP

Attachments:

• DSCF3112.JPG, 1.3 MB

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Permalink Reply by JAY STRUGNELL on August 12, 2015 at 12:14pm

that being the case,I would make another similar to that one with non metalic inserts,and put it where you like them.I would leave existing ones right where they are,then you have placement options.

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Permalink Reply by JAY STRUGNELL on August 11, 2015 at 6:18pm

I have some high grade walnut I can ship you for shipping cost 10$;if you make long ones out of wood with multiple holes you would need to be sure to closely match the curve of the sides or you can put multiple short ones on each side with less fitting.

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Permalink Reply by JAY STRUGNELL on August 12, 2015 at 12:35pm

Upon looking at your photo closer,yours is more complex than need be,yours apears to have several cuts made to house a piece of delrin for the bushing. You can simply make a one piece block to fit between the rails,then drill for inserts to push in. The experts tell me that the insert should be fairly tight on the oar lock so that the oar moves and the lock doesnt.

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Permalink Reply by Phillip Westendorf on August 12, 2015 at 5:38pm

MW,

Take a look at the oarlocks on my DB. Blow up the picture and you can see it better.  I made  a block that fit between the Sheer rails and a Mahogany Cap (3/8" thick) to sit on top.  There are three delrin bushings spaced about 6" apart.  You can see the rear bushing on the Port Side.  This past Winter I raised them about 3" to make it easier for me to row.  But I don't have a picture of that set up.

G'Luck,

Dorf

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Permalink Reply by marty whipple on August 14, 2015 at 1:52pm

well thanks you Phil for all your help  ill give it a try thank you again

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Permalink Reply by chris towles on August 14, 2015 at 6:44pm

Not to hijack your thread but this may be relevent.

I've posted before asking about oarlock angle relative to the side panels. On briggs boats with a lot of side panel flair the oarlocks usually have a reverse bevel on top to flatten out the angle relative to the side panel. Mckenzie boats generally don't do this, but some bigger ones do.

My question is what is the optimal oarlock angle. I know boat bench height and gunwale hieght affect this as does oar length but I'm wondering if there is an angle we are aiming for.

Fwiw my boat is a 17x54 hi side with approx 80" beam. A lot of differing opinions on that size boat some think you need to flair some go with the side panel angle. I'm wondering if there is an optimal angle we want so that it's not so size and dimension specific. I'm about to do gunwales real soon so I would love to hear opinions

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Permalink Reply by Phillip Westendorf on August 14, 2015 at 7:31pm

Chris,

If you look at the angle of the sides at the oarlock position I can't see where that makes a big difference with the oarlocks at that same angle.  The contact point of the oar to the oarlock is a line contact on the inside diameter of the oarlock.  As the oarlock angle might change I can't see where that affects things if the oar is inclined (in the water) or horizontal (between strokes).  With Sawyer or other like oarlocks as you stroke the oars the contact angle constantly changes constantly. 

I just went through this issue (oarlock position) with my DB this past year.  I launched it in Nov 14 and determined they, the oarlocks were too low, angle didn't seem to be an issue. There just was not enough room for my legs (6'-4" tall) when holding the oars out of the water.  Modifying seat height was a tough call as I spent a lot of time messing with that when I built it and it wasn't an easy fix.  So I raised the oarlocks about three inches and that made a big difference.  

I've since had it in the water a couple of times and determined also the oars were too heavy (8.2 Lbs.) so I have reduced their mass to 6.8 Lbs. (-17%) focusing on the lower portion below the oarlocks.  Have not had a chance to try them out yet but am sure it will improve the effort work of rowing.

Just another opinion,

Dorf

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Permalink Reply by chris towles on August 15, 2015 at 7:17pm

Well, I'm not sure I agree with you on this one, I think some Briggs boaters might not also. I haven't run into the issue personally because my last boat had little side flair but my new one does have a good bit. it seems that too much oarlock angle can limit being able to get the oars out of the water. it makes sense if you think about it. The more you flair the oarlocks outward to a higher angle, the less vertical space there is inside the lock to allow the oar to travel thru the stroke. The oar will bind in the top of the lock if you try to push to high. flat oar locks probably would have the most vertical space. However, the would place the center of the up and down range of the stroke aligned roughly centerEd on the gunwale line. I think you do want some flair to get the up and down Range of the stroke lower Twords the water where the stroke happen. I hear what you are saying in that there is a lot of movement involved in a stroke, both up and down and front to back. I just think there are lots of factors to consider to get optimal alignment.

In theory, the oar lock angle we are looking for should be roughly 90 degree to the the center axis of our stroke range, (up and down) with the lowest point being full blade engagement in the water during the stroke, and the highest point being as high as you would reasonably want to get the oars out of the water. Obviously this is a discussion to be lumped right in with oar length, seat height relative to oarlock height, rower size and the like. Maybe it's one of the those things where there is no correct answer. Guy had a pretty good equation going last year to figure out optimal oar length, but it was too much math for me. Maybe I just need to experiment. I've watched too many guys redo their oar locks right after the boat is built, so I plan to avoid that trap by leaving the center oar blocks of the boat uninstalled. I'll make up some mock ones out of scrap that are pretty tall and have a few different holes. I plan to do a lake test with a few different sets of oars to try and find optimal block location, height, and oar length. Once I get that maybe I can take some of these assumptions and see if I can figure out wether I really need to flair or not. It's certainly less work to just run standadr block, but being a decked boat where I may have height clearance issues already I want to make sure it's right before the boat heads to the river

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