Little sculling boats for little people

[Jake Frith]

I'm planning to put together or otherwise obtain a little sliding seat sculling boat for my son who's just turned 7. I'm familiar with sensible 'starting point' rigging numbers for adult sized boats, and even if I wasn't the information is available in many places.
He's 140cm tall, maybe a couple of cm more now as not measured him for a couple of months. Arm 'wingspan' also 140. He's the tallest in his school year (of 90 kids) and has recently started fair and square hammering his (albeit 40 years older and terrible runner (ex rowers usually are) dad on our 20 minute training runs. Despite the fact that the rowing clubs round here don't like to take kids under 10, I think it's time to pop him in a boat in the spring off the beach here and at least see if he likes it.
I don't want him to hate the sport I loved, so I don't want him getting put in heavy adult rigged Virus boats etc. I would like him to feel as early as possible the lovely acceleration and lightness of a boat that's properly rigged
for someone his size and taps along reasonably well.
I'm sure that this would involve different scull length, distance through work, span, height of oarlocks above LWL etc.
I'm saying 'putting together', not 'building' because this is a low budget experience and I don't have the time or inclination to build a hull from scratch. I have a few hull choices kicking around. Outright speed is of little concern, it's all about feel, and gearing and I don't care about training his balance at this stage and don't want him swimming, so happy to provide him with a nice wide, flat platform upon which he can perform a reasonable approximation to the sculling motion. ( A 'sculling tub' if we want to get all nineteenth century about it) . So I'm most inclined at the moment to laminate and fit a wing rigger to a 14 ft carbon ex racing stand up paddle board I have kicking about, the foam fill takes away any buoyancy concerns.and quite a little job to scoop out the foam for the footplate area, glass/ carbon it up etc. This would be very stable, when sat on and he's already happily hand and kayak paddled it around a bit last summer and it looked to be trimmed ok and running along quite well for what it is.

I've a lifetime of experience in adapting/ playing with boats, epoxy etc ( with some mixed results!), so not worried about the mechanics of creating the necessary local reinforcement for bolting a rigger to a largely styrofoam construction etc, but never had to scale something down for a child like this, and want to try to avoid making time sapping mistakes, so it would be great to get some starting point figures for the measurements I mentioned above. Anyone got any Idea where I'd get some vaguely proven numbers?

Perhaps an existing proven product I could obtain some numbers off would be a starting point. I've seen something called a miniscull on US websites. Does anybody know of such a thing in the UK?, Or where there is one in the south of England I could go and visit with a tape measure (post lockdown 3/4/5- delete as appropriate)

Or is it feasible/proven to scale down linearly? IE, take measurements off my boat rigged light and simply multiply everything by 140/192 (his height/ my height) Most things in boat design do not scale linearly so this might be wishful thinking.

Or has somebody already spawned such a DIY thing but the kid outgrown it or lost interest? I've no doubt such doubtful creations languish in the weeds round the back of many a UK rowing club, and the value of such a niche market monstrosity would probably only be in the tens of pounds, probably not much more than the half litre of epoxy I'd be using...

[Andy McKenzie]

Sounds like a great project. One thing I might suggest is that before you invest too much epoxy in laminating a wing rigger you protype it with wood? If you aren't talking adult rugby player levels of force a plywood rigger or even a rigger from 3 inch by i inch wood can easily take the forces, and if you decide that you need to change span etc, 5 minutes with a hacksaw and drill and you are sorted. Equally if you join the footplate/rigger/seat runners as a single structural unit it takes away any real need for a strong structural attachment to the board. You might do worse than garner inspiration from Jim Floods Openboat initiative (https://sites.google.com/a/theopenboat.org/the-open-boat/home) . With the appropriate sizing a moulded foam hull could be an option.

Andy

[RS]

Hi Jake,

I hope you are well, sounds like you have an interesting new project.

In the US we had a company called "the little sculling boat" company that made small sculls originally for kids between 35lbs and 115lbs, they later changed it to allow people up to 200lbs to row them, I guess they made them bigger.
I don't think they are made any more but take a look at the web site https://littlescullingboats.wordpress.com/

If you want me to I can see if I can track down some key dimensions on them, you may remember Steve at Evergreen Rowing who hosted the Cross Sound race, he was a distributor for them for a while.

Another challenge may be oars, nothing worse than having unmanageable oars for someone so young, I guess you could cut a pair down but it seems a bit drastic.

Happy New Year.

Roger

[Jake Frith]

Thanks Roger,
Yes, the sculls would be the expensive bit, in that once cut down they're pretty much worthless. I'd probably look for some aluminium (Or aluminum as you probably now say:) shafted macons (Macons would be best anyway for learning), kicking round the back of a rowing club somewhere. Probably quite cheap and plentiful. Nobody wants to put aluminium blades on their pub wall, and I'd imagine not many want to row with them either!
In terms of the little sculling boat company. I think that might be the guys I was thinking of. Be great if you could ask Steve the question re numbers!
Span is the main one I want (I sure don't like the look of their riggers- but I sure would like to know how wide they are!), but concerning their 'custom made Concept2 blades' - Inboard/ Outboard and did they cut down the blades or just the shafts? would be my main questions.
Distance through work and anything on heights of seat versus heels, oarlock horizontals and the water level would be a bonus!

Of course, one option would be to make all parameters of the boat SO adjustable, it can accomodate anyone from 5 to 95...

Thanks Andy re plywood suggestion. Yes, I was going to build a suitable frame out of lumber to get the double curve in it (The front deck is higher than the oarlocks will need to be) and lay it up out of 6-10 layers of 3mm ply, glued together in a vacuum bag. I'd then have the option should I wish of later covering the whole thing in some layers of carbon and epoxy if I want it stronger or nicer looking. I visualise a beautiful construction remeniscent of an albatross in flight, although it will probably end up rather more like a pidgeon hit by a car. I don't use 'real' vacuum bagging by the way. I use the vacuum bags that people put their duvets in and suck them flat so they can get them under the bed! It is a bodge of my own devising, although I'm sure others have tried it! I've made some really succesful laminates that way. You still have to use the proper peel ply followed by the blotting paper type cloth (who's correct name escapes me) on the outside layer to soak up any excess resin. And you have to return to it regularly during the curing process to suck a bit more vacuum into it. Or out of it.

Good suggestion on the making one unit out of rigger/ footplate. Reminds me of a former project. I once acquired a length of 1980s aramid Empacher 4x (off a guy on here I think). I met him in a carpark near Oxford, and had to take a saw with me. I just googled to see if anyone else had ever tried the same thing, so I could send a photo, and found my actual boat! https://rowingforpleasure.blogspot.com/2012/10/a-genius-boat.html
It made a floppy plasic Canadian canoe go faster than it ever had before. I like it that this chap implies that this is my regular mode of transport! I think I bolted the 'drop in rig' twice in total! I did used to scull to work at the time, but not in that thing, it was about 6 miles each way!