Below is a photo of the small stainless steel winch base on my Ariel. I am giving some thought to a heavy-duty steel triangle (1.5 inch wide stainless steel bar stock) that could be bolted either permanently or temporarily with wing nuts to the outboard side of the winch bases. I envision the triangle to be ten inches high with a three inch horizontal base (on top) extending outboard about three inches at the approximate height of the top of the winch. One and a half inches of this horizontal "base" would form the base of the triangle and one and a half inches would extend beyond the hypotenuse of the triangle. On this one and a half inch extension, an oarlock socket would be mounted. This would provide a distance of 84 inches between oarlocks, and locate them well outboard of the winches but slightly inboard of the rail at what seems like a convenient height for rowing while standing and/or sitting.
I have no way of knowing whether or not this actually makes any sense unless I drill a few holes in my nice shiny stainless steel winch bases, which for merely experimental purposes, I am loath to do. So, I hope that someone out there has already gone through this already and can offer some helpful suggestions and/or photos of a successful Ariel or Commander oarlock installation. Willie, yours looks great, but the large winch support platform on yoru boat is the key to yoru elegant approach, and I don't have such a platform.
The other alternative that I am considering is to make up a Genoa track mounted oarlock socket, but I am concerned that to obtain the height that I need any device that I might design would place excessive torque on the track.
Last edited by Scott Galloway; 09-12-2005 at 11:05 PM.
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