# Sculling sailboats?



## CirclethatA (Mar 26, 2009)

So, I've got a question, and an anecdote.

I've heard stories of sailboats, even over 35 feet, being sculled into ports, without motor. Most of these stories come from either Bermuda or China, consequently (and seem dated). In fact, in China there is a saying "a scull equals 3 oars", though this is beside the point...

Has anyone ever seen this done? I'm sure it's not easy, but it seems invaluable, especially if you're minus the iron jib. So basically my question is whether this is a practical thing to do for a moderate/heavy displacement 27 foot boat, full keel with cutaway for-foot, attached rudder, or any boat for that matter.

That and I basically want to see what everyone thinks of this idea, because if you can still maneuver the boat it seems pretty ideal.

Thanks.


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## sailingdog (Mar 19, 2006)

Yes, it can be done. But you need a fairly long oar to do it with and a set of thole pins or some other notch for the oar on the transom of the boat.


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## capttb (Dec 13, 2003)

A dockmate does it quite often, first time I offered him my dinghy engine and found out he does it for recreation, as Dog said he uses a very long oar and a couple thole pins. I'm not sure what his boat was when first built but it is now a 27' junk rigged ketch with a very large unstayed wooden mainmast. I swear that my description of this boat is accurate.


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## CharlieCobra (May 23, 2006)

I've sculled both of my boats with the rudder at various times. It is very slow but it works.


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## redstripesailor (Sep 6, 2006)

There's a group of guys out in Bellingham WA call the Oar Club. They sail boats of all types (from a J30 to a Atkin double ender) sans engine and use sweeps and sculling oars for propulsion when there is no wind. The guy who started the group, Jerome Fitzgerald, wrote a great book called "The Purpose of Sailing" in which he details just how efficiently one can handle a boat with no engine. If you're interested in this stuff it's definitely a worthy read. Personally, I'm currently looking into a sculling or for my engineless Triton.


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## MorganPaul (Sep 16, 2008)

Here is a article on sculling.
Check it out :

Sculling One


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## CrazyRu (May 10, 2007)

redstripesailor said:


> There's a group of guys out in Bellingham WA call the Oar Club. .


Their website
Home Page


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## tdw (Oct 2, 2006)

Sculling is a pretty cool thing to do. If the idea appeals the obvious thing to do is rig up a pair of thole pins (to be honest a rowlock will suffice) on the stern of your dinghy and have at it. 

Does depend somewhat on your dinghy of course. Inflatables are not the best nor are today's typically lightweight and tippy fibreglass things but something with good directional stability is worth a shot. 

Succeed and admiring glances will be your reward. Fail...well lets just say that standing in a dinghy in the middle of a mooring field going round in circles does not increase your overall standing in the community.  Trust me, I know. . 

btw....skulling a sub 30' engineless craft is a whole heap different to trying to punt something with a bloody great lump of cast iron under the cockpit, !!!!


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## hphoen (Apr 3, 2003)

When I was a teenager, our family spent summer vacations in an old farm house on Gwynn's Island, VA, on the Chesapeake Bay. We were adopted by a local waterman by the name of Fossie Smith. He taught me a lot about life on the Bay. One of the things he did was to take the time to teach me how to scull an 18' crab skiff. It's an absolutely Zen way to propel a small boat. You have to do it to understand that.


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## fullkeel7 (Apr 16, 2008)

I read an article some years ago that Lin and Larry Pardey had a sculling oar made for Taleisin. They had it custom made and brought it back in the hold of an airliner. As I remember, it was waaay long and had a long thin 'paddle' section for flexability. Taleisin is not a lite boat...so it must work. 

I'm not THAT much of a traditionalist and I'm lazy, so I'll be firing up the iron genny thank you very much.


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## klubko (Feb 21, 2007)

Here is a link for the Pardey discussion:
The Self-Sufficient Sailor - Google Book Search


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## tdw (Oct 2, 2006)

hphoen said:


> When I was a teenager, our family spent summer vacations in an old farm house on Gwynn's Island, VA, on the Chesapeake Bay. We were adopted by a local waterman by the name of Fossie Smith. He taught me a lot about life on the Bay. One of the things he did was to take the time to teach me how to scull an 18' crab skiff. It's an absolutely Zen way to propel a small boat. You have to do it to understand that.


Absolutely. Sadly not many of us have 18' crab boats. A mate of ours has an absolutely lovely 'peapod'. I've never sculled her but she is a joy to row. To get the most out of sculling (or rowing for that matter) something better than the average yacht tender is required. Its most unfortunate that for most of us these days our tenders are rubbish when it comes to rowing.


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## patrickbryant (Nov 28, 2010)

Twice now the stupid air pump that runs on dead dinosaurs quit. Both times, I was in the harbor with no wind. Stands to reason, that's the only place I'd run the engine anyway.

Day before yesterday, there was not a breath of wind near the harbor, and the bucket of demented parts quit with me 600 feet from the slip. So I sculled home. Sculling involves moving the tiller back and forth like a fish moves a fin. You move it rapidly in one direction, then slowly in the opposite – just like you would move your arms while swimming under water. You change course by moving the tiller only from the center to the opposite side in which you desire to turn. I enjoyed moving along slowly, propelling myself with the tiller. It works, but it's slow. It took me over an hour to get to the mouth of the harbor. I'm not complaining.

I believe this technique is possible on a boat having a wheel instead of a tiller – but considering most boats with wheels require more than a full revolution of the wheel to move the rudder through a full side-to-side deflection, the technique would rapidly exhaust anyone using it. Chalk up another advantage of tillers over wheels.

So once I was in the harbor channel, all these boats passed me. While passing, one skipper asked: "Are you aground?" I said, no, I'm just sculling back to my slip. He looked at me as if I had grown two heads. A sailboat came along (under power) and asked if I needed a tow. I said: "No. Do you?" I then laughed and thanked him, and explained that I was moving along fine by sculling. He said: "Doing what?" I repeated my explanation. He said: "Don't you know that's impossible without a special mount for a long oar?" And I said: "Gee, I wish you'd told me that before I'd sculled my boat this far."

I got it all the way into the harbor and into my slip. The same gentleman was standing on the neighboring dock watching me round the corner, turn 90 degrees right, line up with the slip, and propel my boat ever-so-slowly into its berth. He was all bug-eyed at my violation of the laws of physics. Good thing there weren't any physics cops to catch me.

I sail a Pearson Ariel. It's 25 feet 7 inches overall, and 3,500 pounds gross. For sculling, I believe that size doesn't matter, but patience does.

Your actual mileage may vary.


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## seabreeze_97 (Apr 30, 2006)

Atom Voyages | Improvement Projects, Page 3
It's called a Yuloh in China.


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## Knotaclu (Jan 2, 2010)

hphoen said:


> When I was a teenager, our family spent summer vacations in an old farm house on Gwynn's Island, VA, on the Chesapeake Bay. We were adopted by a local waterman by the name of Fossie Smith. He taught me a lot about life on the Bay. One of the things he did was to take the time to teach me how to scull an 18' crab skiff. It's an absolutely Zen way to propel a small boat. You have to do it to understand that.


Wow, hphoen, what a small world. I learned to skull at Gwynn's Island, too. Barn Creek. And knew Fossie. We sill have part of the farm on Barn Creek. Email me if you get a chance. ernie45atAOLdotcom.


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## CharlieCobra (May 23, 2006)

patrickbryant said:


> Twice now the stupid air pump that runs on dead dinosaurs quit. Both times, I was in the harbor with no wind. Stands to reason, that's the only place I'd run the engine anyway.
> 
> Day before yesterday, there was not a breath of wind near the harbor, and the bucket of demented parts quit with me 600 feet from the slip. So I sculled home. Sculling involves moving the tiller back and forth like a fish moves a fin. You move it rapidly in one direction, then slowly in the opposite - just like you would move your arms while swimming under water. You change course by moving the tiller only from the center to the opposite side in which you desire to turn. I enjoyed moving along slowly, propelling myself with the tiller. It works, but it's slow. It took me over an hour to get to the mouth of the harbor. I'm not complaining.
> 
> ...


Nicely done....


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## sailingdog (Mar 19, 2006)

Of course, sculling with the rudder tends to be possible only in fairly benign conditions....any sort of contrary current or wind and you're toast.


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## WanderingStar (Nov 12, 2008)

I've never sculled. I did row my previous two boats (20', one ton; 26', four tons) when necessary. Usually I just waited for a breeze. Rowing them wasn't hard, there was no point in trying to go fast, a steady stroke yielded half a knot. I made a long oar from a piece of spruce staging plank.


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## Jeff_H (Feb 26, 2000)

I used to row my Folkboat, which did not have an engine. I had a single long sweep which had a loop of line that I tossed over a winch and rowed facing forward. Once up to speed it was pretty easy to keep moving. I would tie the helm slightly over and then varied the speed of my stroke to hold a course. 

I have tried sculling bigger boats on a number of occasions and its not that efficient without a properly shaped oar, and I found it hard on the wrists having to rotate the blade under load. 

I would not suggest sculling a boat with its rudder as a regular means of transport since it wears out the pindles and gudgeons or the rudder post prematurely. 

Jeff


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## speciald (Mar 27, 2007)

Another way to do it is to fix the rudder amidships and rool the boat from side to side. It works on racing dinghys


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## Waltthesalt (Sep 22, 2009)

I've sculled my 21 foot trailer sailer boat. On one trip I found I'd left the rudder home and used the scull oar as a repalcement. It worked. For my 29 ft Cal, I have 10 ft oars and can row it. They need to be at least that log to reach the water. I think the Pardeys just rowed with a single oar with thier first boat. worked fine and was a simple arrangement


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## klem (Oct 16, 2009)

While it is a very neat way to move a boat about for short distances, it is incredibly tiring to move a big boat at any speed or for any real distance. As Jeff mentioned, it can be hard on the wrists. The real advantage to me is that you can see where you are going and you can fit in between docks barely wider than your boat.

Personally, I prefer to row than to scull a boat. I can make the boat go much faster and it is much more pleasant. I leave sculling for the tight quarters maneuvering (be careful, some sculling setups make it hard to stop or go backwards while it is easy with others, it all depends on how much you can pivot the oar).


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## patrickbryant (Nov 28, 2010)

speciald said:


> Another way to do it is to fix the rudder amidships and rool the boat from side to side. It works on racing dinghys


I'll have to try that, but... only first in a very private setting. Given the amount of attention I got from other boaters by just moving the tiller back and forth to move along, I suspect that their seeing me running repeatedly back and forth across the deck from one beam to the other might get me locked up for psychiatric observation.

I've found sculling with the rudder to also be a good way to rescue my boat when she's caught in irons - while keeping the sailing pure of noisy smelly beasts with propellers.


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## Tazsprout (Nov 3, 2010)

Klem (or other rowers of smallish sailboats..)
How do you set up the boat for rowing? I can't quite work out what you do for oar locks or where one would sit. Can you explain? 

I used to scull home all the time in my Beetle Cat... it had one of those huge barn door rudders. 

Chris


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## klem (Oct 16, 2009)

How you set it up is really a function of the boat. The critical dimensions in it are the seat height, oarlock height, distance between oarlocks and oar length. Things like the fore and aft placement of the seat and oarlocks do matter but are not as important.

Usually the first thing to figure out is where you can put oarlocks. If you have a cockpit coaming, it is usually an easy place to bolt on a set. I have also seen people who make a standoff block that bolts through the deck and has an oarlock on it. For boats that don't plan to row a lot, you can wrap a line around the oar and the jib winches (assuming you have them) and it works okay.

Next, you need to figure out where you can sit. Usually a removable seat across the cockpit seats or on top of the centerboard trunk works best. If it isn't fastened down, this will allow you to play around with fore and aft position. The height is important and easiest to figure out sitting in the boat with the oars in the oarlocks. You want the oar handle to be somewhere around shoulder height with the blade just fully buried. If you always row in calm water, you can have it a bit lower but if you row in rough water, you need to keep it high so that the blades don't hit the waves on the recovery.

I hope that this helps.


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## WanderingStar (Nov 12, 2008)

Exactly.


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## COOL (Dec 1, 2009)

patrickbryant said:


> Chalk up another advantage of tillers over wheels.


My Islander 30's large aft raked rudder makes
a perfect skulling 'paddle', I can easily maintain
over a knot of boatspeed, in a flat calm,
and often skull into the slip when the wind drops off.
Since the rudder can turn all the way around,
I can skull in reverse also , which is a handy
feature when sailing on to a mooring or 
backing into a slip.


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## Andrew65 (Dec 21, 2009)

I have an engineless 8 ton 29ft gaffrigged cutter. I converted my 5 meter long sweep to a 6 meter long yuloh after learning it was better for my boat. It works like a charm. Anyone want to know the process, write me. It was a long research, but well worth it. Sweeps are good for lighter boats, and yulohs are better for heavier boats. Jeff H is right about it being hard on your wrists, after a few sessions, Popeye comes to mind. A well built and rigged yuloh is easy enough for a 15 year old to use. 

Engineless sailing requires a different mindset. The rules of nature make you take on a whole new perspective towards it.


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## nonikiyu (Oct 16, 2014)

hphoen said:


> When I was a teenager, our family spent summer vacations in an old farm house on Gwynn's Island, VA, on the Chesapeake Bay. We were adopted by a local waterman by the name of Fossie Smith. He taught me a lot about life on the Bay. One of the things he did was to take the time to teach me how to scull an 18' crab skiff. It's an absolutely Zen way to propel a small boat. You have to do it to understand that.


Bay sculling is a bit different from other methods although I have seen sculling oars which differ little from regular oars. I recall as a kid in the 50s rowing the family skiff down the river and I was passed handily by a neighbor (known as Cap'n Kidd...how's that to impress a youngster?) in his 70s sculling an 18 ft skiff down to the marina to pick up some breakfast items for his wife. A very humbling experience. 
The sculling oar Cap'n Kidd used was essentially a tapered flat board with a lot of flex and was used pivoting over a single thole pin on the transom. Once you try sculling on a single thole pin with a flexible oar it is remarkably easy. I only ever saw one boat with a notch in the stern and never two thole pins as a guide. 
That said some 15 years ago the grandson of the elder neighbor showed me the sculling oar his grandmother (Kidd's wife) chipped a good sized section out of when she was breaking the ice to get across river during the freeze of 1925 and it seemed to differ little from a standard rowing oar other than its blade was longer. I can't believe that it ever functioned as well as the flexible flat sculling oar which to me seems the model of efficiency.
I've often wondered if it was merely a local variation (SW Branch of the Severn) of the more rigid sculling oar. I talked with a number of watermen and to a man they all speak with admiration of folks who handled a boat well with a sculling oar but it seems to be a lost art nowadays.


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## rbrasi (Mar 21, 2011)

This is my neighbor sculling his Yankee 30. He used river raft oars mounted in poles he stuck in the holes in his winches.

Sent from my iPhone using Sausage-like fingers


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## newhaul (Feb 19, 2010)

Here is a page on how to make the oar locks and rowing a bigger full keel boat A Pearson Ariel Page 
And here's one on making a yuloh for any boat $10 Yuloh - Cheap introduction to "scientific sculling."


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## Andrew65 (Dec 21, 2009)

The 10usd page has pretty good info. I found that one when I made my yuloh. If you follow his advice, I'd add a sacrificial block with drilled out holes lashed to the pivot spot on the oar. If you don't, the hole in the oar will wear out, then you have to build a new oar. The sacrificial block is easier to replace. 

Cheers


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