I just sold my kevlar ultra light Wenohah Voyager to a man from the Detroit area who plans to row it. He’s been rowing canoes for years (mostly aluminum) and belongs to a local rowing club. He’s very excited to get the Voyager set up for rowing.
Anyone else row a Voyager?
I told him that I’d read that there are third party manufacturers that make rowing frames for narrower canoes so that the oar pivot point could be farther away from the center of the boat, but I couldn’t remember who made them. Anyone have suggestions for sources for those frames?
I also told him about canoe covers from Cook Custom Sewing in case he wants to reduce effects of the wind.
I must admit that the idea of rowing a Voyager sounds fascinating to me.
Happy paddling (or rowing).
It’s easy to set up
Most use a wooden thwart which receives two wooden outriggers (bolted near the center of the thwart) which angle rearward and clamp onto the gunwales with large tightening nuts moving up an angled piece of aluminum to pinch it. These wooden arms extend out beyond the gunwales about 10 inches and are usually drilled to accept 5/8 inch plastic sleeves that take i/2 inch pins mounted to the oars (it may be necessary to raise the pin socket height to help the oars clear the narrow outwales. It's the triangle each arm forms with the thwart and the gunwale that makes it a stiff outrigger. This setup moves the oarsockets outward for about a 35-40 inch spread for good rowing leverage. See the adjustable rowing rig by Essex Industries via the following link.
http://essexindustries.org/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=3&products_id=5
You would probably remove the sliding pedastal (sp?) and replace it with some sort of cushion so that you would be rowing from low in the boat (4-6" off the bottom, a small bean bag works great). This seating and outrigger arrangement should work fine with an overlapping grip and 6-7 foot spoon blade oars. It would be fast ... once you dialed in good rowing ergonomics.
Got an email from the Voyager rower
today.
He’s having a hoot rowing it with his cobbled together rig and looking into options for outfitting it further and imagining new uses for the boat. He plans to do some fishing with it too. He’s retired, so he’s got plenty of time for designing and fabricating accessories.
Feedback from Voyager Rower:
“Thanks for the rowing website info. It has provided me with some good ideas. I need to see if my steel conduit tubing benders will work on aluminum. I now have 9 1/2 foot aluminum oars and a 66 inch span rowing fixture. It really cruises.
Luckily, I am able to examine and measure the rowing shells used by the U of M rowing team. My boat now rows very similar to a formal shell where the oar handles are on top of each other in the return mode. I am working on the sliding seat. The boat gets used almost every day. Great boat. I will send you pics soon.”