Drift Boat 101: Part Six – The Crawl Stroke

A very good rowing or oar manipulation skill is the crawl stroke. The crawl stroke is a combination of backrowing and sweeping. Sweeping is accomplished by turning the oar around facing upstream and pushing or pulling on the oar handle sideways rather that front to back as in standard backrowing. The reason learning the crawl stroke is so beneficial is …

Drift Boat 101: Part Five – Common Rowing Situations

Situation #1 Entering the main current from an eddy or side channel A situation that a rower must look out for, and then plan for, is when you have to enter a swift flowing current from a slower current, such as an eddy or other soft water. When you encounter a situation similar to this, here are a few things …

Drift Boat 101: Part Four – Putting In and Shoving Off

Lets put some of our techniques into use and talk about the first maneuver you’ll have to learn which is how to put in and shove off into the current. Whether you’re putting your boat in a river at a busy launch ramp, a primitive launch or in a portion of the river during your day, you need to know …

Drift Boat 101: Part Three – Maneuvering by Ferrying

Basic Maneuvering – “Ferrying” the Boat In Part II we learned how to pivot the boat by using one oar as an anchor or to use both oars to pivot the boat. Here’s how pivoting comes into play when maneuvering the boat down a river and avoiding obstacles or just generally getting around. All maneuvers of the boat involve ferrying …

Drift Boat 101: Part Two – The Basics

Rowing Technique Let’s get started with the basic rowing technique. As kids we probably at one time or another found ourselves on a lake in a row bow. To get around you’d be facing the bow (front) and you’d reach forward with your hands as the oar blades went back, dip the oars, and then pull them backwards, which resulted …

Drift Boat 101: Part One – Getting Started with Gear

As you may have heard we had a death on the Lower Yuba last month when an older gentleman was knocked out of a drift boat rowed by his son and did not recover. I discussed this with friends and have decided to post some articles about the art and safety regarding rowing a drift boat, raft or pontoon boat …