Which is a pity, because a well-designed boat is a pleasure to row and requires suprisingly little effort. First on the shopping list was two sets of oars. One of the pleasures of living in the West of London is being able to cycle down to the Skiff Club at Teddington and take a boat out on the river. These racing skiffs represent the ultimate in rowing technology at the end of the last century. Rowing was a very popular pastime and there were literally thousands of Skiffs based on the river between Richmond and Teddington.
Modern boats use metal rowlocks of one sort or another.
The Skiffs however use wooden thole pins of a very similar design to those used by the Vikings. Not surprisingly, with their Norwegian ancestry, the Shetland boats also use thole pins. A conversation at the Skiff club bar led me to George Sims on Eel Pie Island. I was told that this was one of the few companies still able to make wooden sculls. Mr Sims was very helpful even though I made it clear that I was looking for secondhand sculls, and there was unlikely to be much profit in it for him.