Simplicity Boats

Description

If you're like me, you think of sculling as a kind of inferior form of rowing only to be resorted to when you've lost an oar or are trying to maneuver in close quarters. The way I learned to scull and the amount of time I gave to practicing, it is best left as method of last resort. However "yulohing" has been described as "scientific sculling" and it has remained the oar locomotion of choice in the Orient for hundreds of years and maybe longer. Was it only a matter of long standing tradition that kept the Chinese or Japanese from adopting western rowing techniques once they were exposed to them? I think not. Let me try to explain the Yuloh's advantages. For those of you who have researched outboard motor auxiliaries for sailboats you know that larger props moving at lower RPMs render more torque than smaller props at higher RPMs. This same principle can be applied to oar blades. Being bigger, the Yuloh is not capable of being moved very quickly, however the long Yuloh blade with a surface area many times that of a traditional western rowing oar displaces a lot of water as it moves. Like the western oar, the Yuloh makes use of a fulcrum and a lever, however rather than merely having your muscle and your body weight at the working end of the lever, you have a lanyard attached to the deck or bottom of the boat. This gives great assistance to the rower in counteracting the pressure of the water against the business end of the blade, which translates into forward thrust. Whether from the flex of the Yuloh blade or the snap of the lanyard at the end of the arc of the stroke (see notes below), there is power and forward thrust coming from the yuloh blade all the time it is in motion. Now this bears contemplating. Notice that when rowing there is always a coasting component to the stroke. As the oars are lifted from the water and returned to their power position, energy is being expended that is not directly applied to moving your craft. With the Yuloh this isn't the case. As you are leaning to and froe, all of your movement and body weight and strength is being translated into forward thrust. Add to the above advantages the ability to propel a craft that might be too wide to row, and the ability to face forward and see where you're going, and you can begin to understand the reasons behind its long lived popularity.After examining all the literature I could lay my hands on, (A huge thank you to Craig O'Donnel, who proved to be his usual font of information.) and checking a bevel guage against my shanty dock sketch, I settled on 11 degrees for the angle between the blade and the shaft or handle of the oar. I drew the angle on the 2x4, then began the cut with my circular saw and finished it up with my Japanese pull saw. Save the piece you saw off to help you clamp the joint. After this cut I did the taper cuts on my table saw. The blade tapers from 5.5" at the water end, to 3.5" where it joins the shaft. The shaft tapers from 3.5" where it joins the blade to 1.75" at the end. My research showed the aft side of the blades to be flat while the leading sides were either triangular in cross section or curved to give lift like a mini wing section.

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