Aquamarine/Nanna K's Day

By NannaK

More Wood Art

Beautiful wood sculling oars made by Pocock Racings shells, which was founded in Seattle in 1911 by George Pocock and his brother who had just come from England where their father was the head boat builder for Eton college around the turn of the century.   The boats were made from red cedar and the oars from Sitka Spruce or a combination of Engleman Spruce and Australian Ironbark, like these, the Ironbark making them stiffer..   These were given to my husband when he retired in 1999.....one of the last 10 sets of sculling oars made in the factory which was then located in Everett, where H worked.   We have rowed our boat with them but they’re heavy—Rowing Oars and boats are made out of much lighter composite materials now…but they’re definitely not so exquisitely artistic!   They live in the cabin but I took these down to the  (wooden)dock this morning to get their photo in the SUN with SHADOWS!!!

links if you are interested in more info.Pocock History
and a bit about the wooden boat factory in Port Townsend that tried to carry on the wooden boat tradition, it does explain how the oars are made.   HERE   It's all interesting,... just too many words for a blip... :-)

Edit: I do want to recommend the book that several comments brought up. "The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Oympics" by Daniel James Brown. It's a very captivating well written story about the UW team and their Pocock boats.

Comments
Sign in or get an account to comment.