Thanks, Doug and everyone for all the "alternative sources of power" discussions. I am glad that others out there are experimenting and sharing that knowledge. I had a hard time with just a single canoe paddle, not because the boat wouldn't move but because she wouldn't track straight. As Doug says, the rudder pressure for correction is severe. Must be the short waterline. Now I am more interested in the sculling oar idea. What kind of oar were you using, Doug? Thanks, Rusty --- Doug Kelch <doug_kelch@yahoo.com> wrote:
I had a fine weekend overnight in light airs, beautiful fall foliage and abnormally high temperatures (80 deg).
The winds were forecast to be light so I took my longish oar for sculling or sweeping messing about.
But first the motor mount. I was sailing in company with a Sea Pearl whose motor mount was in fact on the rudder. It is mounted near the head of the rudder on a bracket that off-sets the motor to the port side of the rudder. Since it is off to the side it does not interfere with the kick up rudder and it is steered with the normal tiller..
The Sea Pearl 21's gudgeon and pintels are twice the size of the M15 to handle the strain of the engine so my conclusion would be that the M15's gudgeons and pintels are not up to snuff for mounting an engine off of the rudder.
The extra weight on one side of rudder is difficult to get used to when heeled or when steering. With the extra weight in light winds the tiller feeling was lost.
Sculling the M15 - I have a temporary fixture with an oar lock I can mount on the transom. The oar I was using is pretty poor for the application however with little past success in sculling I was able to get the M15 up to 1 kt. My guess is if you were actually go at it you could get closer to 1.6 or even 2 kts for short periods.
Sweeping - I have a couple of cleats on each coaming outside of the cockpit for sheet to tiller steering. I used these to hold both ends of a line with a rolling hitch around the oar. I used a seat cushion under the oar to avoid damaging the coaming. The technique was brute force and I was able to get up to 1.2 kts but the rudder pressure required to continue in a straight line was severe.
Unless you want to go with a pair of oars the sculling approach is probably more sustainable if you can master the technique.
Thanks
Doug Kelch "Seas the Day"
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