Sailing Canoe Chapter 6: Morton's Oar

Steering oar for a Marshallese racing canoe. This is a copy of an oar made by Morton Jikit of Namorik Atoll. He won the Marshall Islands national sailing race in the year 2000 with it.
It's 104" long and 7.25" wide at the tip.

Continues from
Chapter 1: Make the Deck, Keel, and Cockpits.
Chapter 2: Make Ribs
Chapter 3: Lash the Frame
Chapter 4: Carve outrigger and Break tools
Chapter 5: Hull Frame Finishing

Followed by:
Chapter 7: Sew a Skin over the Hull Skeleton and Seal it.
Chapter 8: Keel and Rub Strips
Chapter 9: Dipaakak
Chapter 10: Independent Suspension
Chapter X: Maiden Voyage

Important things to get right:
You must put a big flat spot on this oar where it rests on the side of the canoe. There has to be a corresponding flat spot on the canoe there. I didn't do that on my first oar. I kept straining to keep the oar straight while sailing. As a result I got severe tendonitis in that elbow and mostly lost the use of my right arm for about a year.

The blade needs to be heavy. If it's too buoyant it will try to float up out of the water and you'll have to keep pushing it down, which is extra work.

Step 1 Morton Jikit

Here's Morton working on a new racing canoe on Majuro Atoll in the year 2000.
He's using a piece of pvc tubing as a batten to make sure he's drawing a fair curve.
That's me in the hat, he's kindly invited me to do some adze work on the side. I was pretty nervous not to mess it up. The log is from a senile breadfruit tree that stopped bearing fruit. Breadfruit wood is a lot like cedar, lightweight and rot resistant, but less prone to splitting.

That adze might be very old. Blackbirders and pirates raided the islands in the 1800s. After that the islanders would attack any ships that came near. One of the ships they captured carried a cargo of tools. They've been passed down in families ever since.

Morton's native Namorik Atoll is small and has no reef pass. The men get up in the dark and troll for tuna in one-man sailing canoes. Flocks of birds chase the fish. The canoes chase the birds to find the fish. The birds and tuna move very fast, 30mph or more and move in unpredictable ways. This gives the sailors daily practice in highly competitive sailing.

Comments

[mrdudej]

How much did that oar cost you?

[Wade Tarzia]

Yeah, I always wondered about that, the finishing of the grip. My old oars had painted handles stemming from my Days of Ignorance. I rowed when I couldn't sail, and didn't feel anything really bad. Then I read books that said, 'Leave handle unfinished, to be oiled with the oil of your hand,' and then I felt bad. I never got blisters, though I never rowed for more than hour or two at time. Perhaps you naturally hand-oiled grips work well if you use them an awful lot for heavy labor; for every body else, varnish/lindseed? Will you always be using the steering oar, or mostly for downwind (on my shunting proa I needed oar only for beyond a broad reach -- how did your Yucatan skin-proa work?)

[stib]

Painted oar handles might get slippery when they get wet, especially with gloss paint. Maybe that's the reason.

[Ferrite]

That wood looks really nice!

[I_am_Canadian]

You are a genius.