Ship Nomenclature

I always wondered whether the coracle people had invented the skeg. And if not how did they keep that thing from spinning like a top?

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Rolling chocks? :rofl:

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:rofl: :rofl:

Same way you keep a highly rockered whitewater boat from spinning - skill and good technique. That kid seems to be showing a little of it, the paddle is near vertical and the stroke is ending at his hip, both help minimize turning.

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My new avatar is the first time I sailed that dinghy age twelve or so. P class pram, eight feet, lots of rocker. The sail is Army shirt cloth, cut down from a sail Dad carried on his LCS in the war.

But he built her for me years earlier, when I was four or so. And we put it in the York River at a bridge near our house on a falling tide, flipped up the galvanized folding oarlocks, and went spinning downriver like a whirligig beetle every time Dad touched the oars. Mom met us at York Harbor as planned – but the next time that boat touched water, i.e. the day of the photo, it had a skeg as well as a sail. We amused ourselves in the mean time with a thirteen foot Merry Mac class cat I’ve seen described as akin to the LI sharpies.


This photo would be in '56 looking up the Piscataqua River from the Kittery town landing.

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That boat has enormous moment of inertia compared to a coracle. Very interesting form though – I didn’t know there were boats like that.

I did never see a thing like this advancing in the water…

From the images found, I would say, the only possibility to advance efficiently in a given direction would be to use a method called godille/wrecken in French/German; I do not know the term in English.

The paddle or rudder is fixed at the opposed side of the expected direction, but free to turn on itself. Turning the paddle continuously makes the propulsion push in the right direction …

Even in a heavier boat, this asks for a lot of experience, in a super-light thing like this even more.

Sculling.

I’d think you could also draw-paddle to some degree.

“The secret is not to work too hard”

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Yes, Wikipedia helps always:
The right Wiki-chapter for what i thought, would be ‘Single-Oar Sculling’.

That’s what I call draw-paddling (with paddle or oar).

I can move it with a canoe or kayak paddle. A short stroke with a vertical paddle along a line tangent to the center/paddler position. Turn by extending off that line at either end (i.e. a bow draw or stern sweep). Turning with a bow draw is more efficient as it maintains forward momentum. Not a whole lot different than paddling this (LOA 5.6 feet)

The video also works, but it will be slower and less efficient. It’s the way I move a more conventional canoe or kayak sideways.

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The thing that a coracle had going for it was it was light, could be carried some distance by one man and needed a minimal amount of material to build. A similar craft used to be encountered vat sea of Vietnam with a single fisherman in each fishing with a land line. The craft were carried stacked inside each other on a mothership.
Sculling was an essential skill when I was young and outboards were few and far between. Dinghies usually had a block on the centre of the transom where a crutch (now often called a rowlock) could be shipped.
A rowlock is set into the top of the transom and on well constructed craft had a brass wear plate in it. There was nothing to lose and provided you retained one oar you could still manoeuvre.
Sculling propels the vessel by moving the oar through the water with a twist (pitch) in each direction, larger sailing craft in Europe and Asia would be moved in calm conditions by sculling. A large oar called a sweep was used off the stern and the twisting effect was done with cordage. It was a common sight to see junks moving in the calm of early morning off Aberdeen in HongKong when I was young propelled by this method.
Where rowlocks were set into the gunnels of a sailing craft there was often poppets which were attached by a chain and shipped into the rowlock when under sail to help stop water being shipped through the rowlock.

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Typing on an iPad is really not my thing but it does leave room for morning coffee.

Think of sculling like a voith tractor.
In facet was orobably where the idea came from?

I learned it that way in the Navy. As I recall, all the ladders pointed that way, too. ‘Cept on the boats (subs). They went straight up or down, depending where you were. Who remembers sliding down the handrails when you were in a hurry? And getting yer butt chewed if a senior PO saw you?

I slid down the handrails into the engine room of a ferry just as an oiler walked out of a door at the bottom. The accident report said “Chief Engineer trod on xxxxx”.

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I might need a pair of those. When i was a yard dog one of the shipyard guys stole my steel toes that were out drying and painted them red and green. I was always returning.

I suppose that this word covers it for what it is.