Ash, spruce, or basswood? I’m leaning toward basswood for cost and weight since I really haven’t done this before.
BTW, Frank in NC and others, it looks like 6.5’ is the correct oar length for me.
Danny, the place in Canada has the best prices but wants my SSN for cusatoms. Ain’t gonna happen.
How does basswood compare to …
… soft maple? Soft maple is popular for guide-boat oars, and some told me that this is because it is light and springy. A nice soft maple oar has a little bit of “give” which eases stress on your body, but is not really lost energy because the bend comes out of the wood as you relax your pull. You may not notice that quite so much in an oar as short as 6.5 feet though (you already know that I personally wouldn’t choose such short oars for an open-water boat as wide as yours), but you may still want to try to work a little livelyness into them.
Never seen it.
I’ve no experience with basswood oars. I’ve used ash and spruce. Spruce is really light but dings easily. these days I mostly use aluminum, because the take aprt ones are easy to bring along and the single piece ones are basically unbreakable.