Talk:Oar

IMO this article needs serious revision.

Oars are an ancient means of marine propulsion. This article implies oars are a relatively recent invention.

The article says oars are attached to the vessel via metal outriggers. Isn't this true only on rscing skulls? I believe that the oars for conventional boats are typicallt attached via oar-locks. And prior to the use of oar-locks oars were placed between a pair of wooden dowels. This attachment method has a name too.

An oar is not a paddle. The article, as written, doesn't make clear how oars differ from paddles.

Oars come in many lengths. The oars used in ancient galleys could be something like ten meters long. -- Geo Swan 16:18, 13 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Okay, I edited this article to reflect that oars were important long before their specialized use in competitive rowing. Now the more daunting task of changing the article on rowing... Geo Swan 12:09, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)

In my American experience, an oar may be described as paddle-like, but oars imply oarlocks and rowing, while paddles imply being held only by one person's two hands and paddling. (I was surprised to find that my dictionary makes no clear distinction, between rowing and paddling, nor between oar and paddle. However, it does say rowing entails oars and paddlling entails paddles, so i suspect they assume the reader already knows a distinction between either rowing or paddling, or between oar and paddle.) Is any of this different in Commonwealth English? --Jerzy(t) 20:19, 2005 Feb 14 (UTC)

OAR is also a popular rock band.

I have a few problems with this article as at 7 Dec 2012. 1. Trivial grammatical pedantic: the difference between oars and paddles is ... 2. Surely the fulcrum of the lever is the blade, not the rowlock? 3. Where I lived, in Cornwall some 70 years ago, if each rower had one oar they were oars but if he had two they were paddles. A popular - and fast - scheme for a boat with three sets of tholes and three rowers was "two oars and two paddles". 86.147.130.73 (talk) 22:15, 7 December 2012 (UTC)noel.livermore@btinternet.comReply

Surely oars are 1st class levers, not 2nd class. The blade of an oar at each stroke is fixed (within limits) in the water, effort is applied to the handle and the boat is levered past the blade using the oarlock as the fulcrum. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.174.42.190 (talk) 20:22, 17 October 2013 (UTC)Reply

The fact that the blade is, as you say, fixed (within limits) in the water makes the blade (rather than the oarlock) the fulcrum, hence it is indeed a second class lever as the reference in the article confirms. - David Biddulph (talk) 03:05, 18 October 2013 (UTC)Reply

There's a webpage from Oxford University arguing that the class depends on the frame of reference: the boat, or the shore.^[1] I think it's worth saying so in the article. I know I assumed an oar was "obviously" a 1st class lever and was surprised to find Wikipedia and the World Rowing rulebook defining oars as 2nd class. I'll put it in there. Publicly Visible (talk) 20:50, 17 October 2021 (UTC)Reply

It is used for rowing so you are able to move 37.231.102.68 (talk) 08:19, 6 March 2022 (UTC)Reply