[Rhodes22-list] Sculling oar? ?for Bob Fletcher ?for Bob Weber

[DCLewis1 at aol.com]

Wally, Ed, John, Robert, Mike, Jerry, & Chris,
 
I’m back from a junket and catching up on Emails.  Thanks for your  input 
regarding sculling and trolling motors.
 
Wally, re your 8/23 msg relating an electric trolling motor mounted on a  
block on the rudder.  I hadn’t thought of that, but it sounds like stress  on the 
rudder to me.  I'd rather put that stress on the transom, but I'm  not sure 
it will fit.
 
Ed, thanks for the thought that sculling might be an emergency back up  (your 
msg of 8/23); I hadn’t thought of that, but it might work.  I’ll try  it 
next time out.  I don’t see it as a way to get back from a mile or more  out, but 
it might work.  Probably a capability to have in my “what else  might work” 
bag of capabilities when I run into a problem.
 
Bob, re your notion of using a sculling oar.  I’ve tried to use just a  plain 
old rowing oar as a paddle, without a lot of luck.  The advantage of  a  
rowing oar is that it’s long compared to the paddles I had, so it  reached the 
water easily.  The disadvantage of a rowing oar is the smaller  blade than a 
paddle - so maybe that’s why it didn’t work so well.  A  special purpose sculling 
oar, long reach and wide blade, might work, don’t  know.  But as Mark has 
pointed out, storing a long oar aboard is a  problem.  We keep the rowing oar we 
have aboard up in the V-berth, it won’t  fit under the cockpit seats - it’s 
too long. Robert’s notion of a knock-down  sculling oar may have a lot of 
merit.  To extend what Chris has done,  perhaps that sculling oar could be an 
emergency tiller as opposed to an  emergency tiller being able to scull?
 
John, re your message of 8/23,  we’ve got 2 batts aboard, based on  Jerry’s 
post that should get us about 4 miles, which is significant if you’re  just 
trying to make it back to shore in a low wind situation.  In a high  wind 
situation, you sail back to shore.
 
Finally, Jerry, thanks very much for your response.  I think you broke  the 
code, a 40# motor will work on an R22.  Sounds like you got about 2 mi  on your 
batt (round trip).  We’ve got 2 batts, that should be good for 4 mi  back to 
shore (one way).  Based on your experience, I'm going to check  out a electric 
trolling motor backup.
 
Dave