What is the best blade shape for open water sculling? On flat water I don't feel much difference between the old symmetrical and the new assymetrical. Thanks.

-- Allen (adeweese@gate.net), September 11, 2001

Answers

see the responses about finding short carbon fibre oars for a fixed seat boat...they discuss blade shape as well as materials.

Mike

-- mike Reiner (reiners@silk.net), September 19, 2001.

I'm a huge fan of the composite Alden deltors. They have little blade area below the shaft, so they don't catch the crests of waves and want to spin in your hands as the big blades/hatchets do. I think these, so popular on flat water, are positively lethal in a chop or swell where one cannot reliably predict what the water will do during any given stroke, or how much resistance it will provide. If you inadvertently pull air through a trough with the deltors, life will go on. Not so with the hatchets.

I don't own a pair of the traditional macons, and so have limited experience with them, but I've found them to be solid and capable of holding up a boat in a variety of conditions.

-- Kinley Gregg (apropos876@hotmail.com), March 14, 2002.