Oars for a 27 ft sailboat?

[Amphibiographer]

Has anyone used oars on a 27ft or thereabouts sailboat? We have '72 C&C and the old Atomic 4 gears are out of commission. We'd like to get out of the harbour!! Perhaps installing a removable oarlock in the top of the winches would work?!?!?!

[FSMike]

Google "yuloh".

[boatman61]

Try sculling with a single oar off the stern.. doubt you'll get rollocks to be secure in a winch.. you'd be as well bolting on a piece of hardwood each side at the best spot with pre drilled and sleeved holes the appropriate size..
Both will be a bitch in a head wind..

[mike160871]

Check out the Pardey's book "Self Sufficient Sailor" or "Cost Conscious Cruiser" (I forget which one). They talk in length on this subject and their boat is 29' without an engine. I was hoping to do the same thing as a back up on my boat but I have too much freeboard. I'd have to have a real long oar. Good luck.
Mike

[minaret]

She's only 27'! Park her under sail. Or, +1 on yuloh. Just helped a friend make one.

[boatsail]

oars could work....never tried it before, but could imagine kind of tying your oars to the rear side (loping) of the winch, so on the pull, you would be pulling against the winch...when moving the oars to the pull position the "loop" would keep the oars in place...

i have an ob on my 27 foot boat..works good...
you could try and electric motor if you just want to get in and out of a slip...never tried that before, but can't see why it would not work.

for rowing, google yuloh and check out some videos

[bobconnie]

Ya got a dink ?? If ya do tow it out ! Oars would have to be semi-long !

[minaret]

Tyboat sculling 1.MPG - YouTube

[GaryMayo]

It can be done in no wind. Sailing in no wind is rather dull. Catch 22

[Lancerbye]

I have often thought that with a couple of wenches as rowing slaves and a cat of nine tails one could move along quite nicely. My wife and daughter seem to think unkindly of this. Go figure huh. You would think they would have more consideration for the environment.

[bobconnie]

You think those girls are bad about oars, try makeing them use a bucket for a head !! If ya try to give em a choice ya might get some oars used !! LOL

[seandepagnier]

I have built a yuloh and I can do 1knot for a few hours, or 1.5 knots top speed. I can go against 10 knots of wind and it slows me by .5 knots. Normally you sail in less wind than that. It is ideal for using with favorable tide and little to no wind.

I think it makes sense to try oars too. It would work different muscles if you get tired of the yuloh. Also the yuloh dimensions are critical to get any decent efficiency where oars I believe are a little more forgiving (use large area oars which are fairly close to the boat) You can probably go faster with oars, and it would be easy to negotiate having two people working them at the same time, but would use more effort than the yuloh and would stick out the the side which might make docking more of a pain, but no big deal really.

Now, another really good idea you should consider:

Attach bicycle sprockets and chain to prop shaft with chain coming up into cockpit. Put the largest possible prop you can with 3 or 4 blades. The larger the diameter of the prop, the better. Typically gearing 4:1 to 6:1 (experiment with this) so the prop spins much faster than the pedals. Should allow you to achieve similar speed to rowing or sculling using completely different muscles. If you had a 3ft diameter propeller with perfect dimensions, you could probably pedal the boat at 3 knots or slightly slower for long duration on a 27ft boat.

[Celestialsailor]

Them's not oars!!! Them's me sisters!!!

[David_Old_Jersey]

IIRC (which I may not!) also possible to row with one oar (out the side), never done it or seen it mind! I think something to do with using the rudder angle to stop boat going in circles.

or I could have dreamt it.........

[Amphibiographer]

Thanks so much for all the great ideas!!!! A sculling or (is that a yuloh) might be the best or a small electric outboard. We are new sailors so sailing into our slip is out of the question, it would require two 90 deg turns in very tight harbour, especially at low tide. Yikes!
Will keep you all posted, thanks again!
Terry