Newbie Question: A single scull for beach launching

[Andy Cox]

Hi group,

I've been lurking here for a while now and wanted to ask your opinion on a
point I've been pondering.

I'm currently a member of Aberystwyth Rowing Club in deepest darkest Wales
where we row fixed seat Celtic Longboats. Back in my early teens, I used to
cox and occasionally row and scull 'proper' slidey seat boats on the river
at the local club in my home town.

Whilst rowing CLBs is good fun and lacks a lot of the politics of life in
ARA land, I would like to buy myself a single for training and the
ocassional trip over the bridge to loose embarassingly in some of the
various regattas.

We have two reasonable rivers converging in Aberystwyth that are prefectly
suitable for sheltered water training, together with a marina and these tend
to be where we spend our winters training in the CLBs.

The bit that's putting me off of taking the plunge and buying a single is
that we don't have a pontoon to launch from. The CLBs are fairly resiliant,
so we trundle them into the sea via slipway (or beech at low tide) and a DIY
launch trolley. Landing is rather more damaging, we essentially beech the
boats onto gravel shore at low speed, then the bow man/woman jumps out and
fends off the boat while crew and cox disembark.

My question is how resilient are the various composite materials used to
make single shells at receiving this kind of abuse. Obviously a single is a
little more manouverable than a CLB, and being a personal belonging would be
slightly better looked after, but some amount of abuse would be unavoidable.

I'm looking to buy new and would be particularly interested in boats with a
beefy warranty due to the above. I had been wondering whether a burgashell
coastal shell would be the way to go, but fear it would not be terribly
competitive for river racing.

Please let me know what you think.

Andy Cox

p.s. On the topic of safety, I'd be using a pull-string life jacket and
consider a fully buoyant shell a must as I'd be training largely
unsupervised. Lights would also be a must for night training...

[mpruscoe]

Andy Cox wrote:
>[snip]

> The bit that's putting me off of taking the plunge and buying a single
> is that we don't have a pontoon to launch from. The CLBs are fairly
> resiliant, so we trundle them into the sea via slipway (or beech at low
> tide) and a DIY launch trolley. Landing is rather more damaging, we
> essentially beech the boats onto gravel shore at low speed, then the bow
> man/woman jumps out and fends off the boat while crew and cox disembark.
>
> My question is how resilient are the various composite materials used to
> make single shells at receiving this kind of abuse. Obviously a single
> is a little more manouverable than a CLB, and being a personal belonging
> would be slightly better looked after, but some amount of abuse would be
> unavoidable.

Clubs on the tideway in London launch off a beach or slipway most of the
time, just carrying the boat out far enough to be able to get in without
grounding it.

[carol...@aol.com]

You really wouldn't want to beach your scull on the gravel, and besides
you would risk bending or breaking the fin. Janouseks are probably one
of the toughest, so I'd recommend thinking about one of those.

Caroline

[rebecc...@pembridge.net]

I agree with Mark. Tideway clubs use foreshores with mud, gravel,
sand, stones, bricks, broken glass, used needles you name it lying
around and we wear welly boots and wade out to launch and land.

Buy yourself the best single you can afford. And lord it over the
rest!
Enjoy

[mpruscoe]

While we occsionally get bent fins while landing, most of the hull
damage occurs when people ground while out rowing rather than landing.
As far as single sculls go, I prefer boats with a single skin rather
than honeycomb for general club use as they seem less likely to end up
with holes, and loads of filler, in them (although we a few too many
cheaper boats that are reported to not go in as straight a line as they
should do, although I haven't checked out how much of that is the boat
rather than the operator). Our Janouseks don't seem any better than any
other manufacturer in terms of resistance to hull damage.

[Jay L]

If you want to race on the river then a "river" boat would be the best,
provided your training facilities allow for it. If the facilities don't
allow then the ocean going variety would probably be better for training
(but like you said river racing might be a touch difficult).

As for landing and launching, a scull is rather maneuverable which means
you can aim for the bank and with the correct judgment do a shumacher
and turn with exactly the right distance. The other advantage that
"proper" boats have is that their draft is relatively shallow which
means that you don't need a lot of water to launch (40cm is more than
enough). This is a huge advantage. Best advice would be to get a pair of
waterproof shoes (I hate the thought of carrying wellies in a boat) such
as those used by windsurfers (I think). They are light and don't take up
too much space in the boat which makes life a bit easier.

As for buoyancy, there you should not have a worry seeing as there
should in theory be enough enclosed volume of air in the bow and stern
of the boat to keep the boat afloat. I'm not sure what the situation
would be if either the bow or the stern bulkhead is breached though.

Good luck and lets hope the Welsh put up a fight on Saturday!!! :)

Regards

Jay