Rowing

Rowing is the act of propelling a human-powered watercraft using the sweeping motions of oars to displace water and generate reactional propulsion.

In a maritime setting "sculling" means propelling a boat with a single oar operated over the stern.

[3] The beginning of rowing is clouded in history but the use of oars in the way they are used today can be traced back to ancient Egypt.

However, archaeologists have recovered a model of a rowing vessel in a tomb dating back to the 18-19th century BC.

[5] Rowing vessels, especially galleys, were extensively used in naval warfare and trade in the Mediterranean from classical antiquity onward.

[7] In Classical Athens, a leading naval power at the time, rowing was regarded as an honorable profession of which men should possess some practical knowledge.

However, between 500 and 1100 AD, combined sailing and rowing vessels dominated trade and warfare in northern Europe in the time that has come to be known as the Viking Age.

In other localities, forward-facing systems prevail, especially in crowded areas such as in Venice, Italy and in Asian and Indonesian rivers and harbors.

"Rowing" at sea denotes each rower operating a pair of oars, one on each side of the boat.

The Venetian rowing (voga alla veneta) is the traditional technique in Venice, Italy in which the rower stands up, facing forward and resting a single oar in a special oarlock called fórcola.

Although the oar can be conveniently thought of as a lever with a "fixed" pivot point in the water, the blade moves sideways and sternwards through the water, so that the magnitude of the propulsion force developed is the result of a complex interaction between unsteady fluid mechanics (the water flow around the blade) and solid mechanics and dynamics (the handle force applied to the oar, the oar's inertia and bending characteristic, the acceleration of the boat and so on).

[16] Racing boats also have sliding seats to allow the use of the legs in addition to the body to apply power to the oar.

In Venice, gondolas and other similar flat-bottomed boats[17] are popular forms of transport propelled by oars which are held in place by an open wooden fórcola.

Competitive regattas are also held using the Venetian rowing technique by using both gondolas and other types of vessels.

If the rowlocks are too far apart then the boat will be overly large and rowing will be inefficient, wasting a rower's effort.

Sometimes on narrow, faster rowing boats for protected waters outriggers are added to increase rowlock separation.

Their trim can be altered by using a plastic container of water attached to a rope that can be moved to the bow or stern as need be.

This style of rowing boat was designed to carry a bigger load and the full sections gave far more displacement.

The different lengths of the oars affect both the energy that the rower has to put in as well as the performance, in terms of speed of the rowing boat.

This is important in a small tender which may be heavily laden with passengers, limiting the swing of the oars.

A short, quick stroke prevents the bow being driven under in choppy waters while heavily laden.

Wooden oars are generally made of a light, strong wood, such as fir or ash.

In modern racing boats, oars are created from a composite of materials such as carbon fiber which makes them lightweight.

Successful designs for large and small craft alike evolved slowly and as certain desirable qualities were attained and perfected they rarely changed.

Chapelle, Stephens and others agree that the design came into existence some time in the 1820s in New York City, having first been built by navy yard apprentices who had derived their model to some extent from the old naval gig.