• My awesome crew boat
• The Boat
• The Oars
• The Rowers
  • Overview
  • Paint
  • Construction
  • Assembly
• The Coxswain
• Inaccuracies
• Questions
• Video

The rowers

Two years passed between making the boat and making the rowers, because the rowers are such a huge undertaking. Each rower is made of 13 small pieces of wood, most of which must be carefully painted, and all of which must have small holes drilled in them and then be wired or glued together. It takes a leap of faith to begin this project, because for a long time I would only have a bunch of little strangely-shaped pieces of wood around, and it would require a lot of work before I would get any sort of gratification from having a finished rower.

The rowers are specially constructed for the business of rowing. As you can see in the illustration on the left, the arm opposite the rigger bends down, whereas the arm near the rigger bends out. The legs are both the same, and the rower can move through the full motion of rowing. This is a fairly significant achievement for an object made of wood.