News

The Aero scullsthat were at the Caversham lake being tested by GB Rowing are now back in circulation for clubs to try out.

We have two pairs ready to send to anyone who wants them for a fortnight.

A word of warning:

• Skilled technicians will get the most out of the Aeros
• New equipment takes a bit of getting used to

We have had rave reviews from the Teign Scullers double who are using a set and did well in recent head races.  They say that they handle really well in rough water and in a headwind there's a real speed increase.

Get in touch if you are keen.

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The Dreher Aero sculls are proving their worth with a couple of new developments

Veteran athletes racing in the Head of the Plym at the weekend in a double scull were the third fastest overall time of the whole event beating larger boats.  The increase in speed was put down to the Aero sculls that the crew has been testing.

Further, we have had news from Durham Boat who make Dreher sculls. This was written to Paul Thompson, Ade Roberts and Rosie Mayglothling of the British Rowing team who are also testing the Dreher Aeros for their athletes

We have done quite a lot of [Aero scull] testing with US and German National Team athletes.

The test was an efficiency test and we rowed 200m meters on wind protected water, only 30m wide and 500m long stretch. All tests were done in single sculls at a speed of 3.5m/s and at Stroke Rate of 36. Speed was recorded with both, GPS and SpeedCoach and the boat was up to full speed once at the 0m start line.

We measured the power that needed to be applied to the oarlock to maintain the speed using an oarlock mounted force measurement system.

So far we have done 237 test rows and we do see a clear tendency of the Aero scull to being more efficient, using about 1.5 to 2.5% less power for the same boat speed of 3.5m/s.

We are trying to collect more data.  Of course there were some athletes whose data stood out.  For example Manuela Lutze, German sculler, four time Olympian. Her rows showed improvements in speed of up to 4%, consistently in all 10 pieces she did after having just one 6k practice to get used to the sculls.

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Top American coach Topher Boardeau has written a review of the Drehe4r Aero sculls forthe US rowing magazine, Rowing News.

He writes

Two things affect the speed of rowers and their equipment: propulsion and drag. And while there's only one source of propulsion, drag comes from two places: the water through wich you propel your shell, and the air moved by you and everything not in the water. The faster you go, the greater the drag. And while shells have always been designed to reduce the drag of water on the hull, few products have sought to increase aerodynamic efficiency.

Dreher's DreherAero sculls utilize the same design trick to get more aerodynamically friendly and increase propulsive force. The secret is a shaft and blade design manufactured in a continuous shape that makes the oar less visible to the wind on the recovery and lets it grip the water better on the drive. It's reminiscent of the cycling industry's early attempts at aerodynamic shapes, when vertically bladed frame designs made bikes invisible to headwinds but tough to handle in crosswinds.

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Steve Dance has been triallig two pairs of Dreher Aero sculls and he won the Upper Thames fours and small boats head at the weekend.

Steve Dance (bow) and Rob Wilson (stroke) using a Predatoar double from Intersport Racing Shells and Dreher Aero sculls.  Second photo has Andy Ciceiersky at stroke.

Picture Credits: Steve Dance and Birdman Photography

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Got a lovely photo from Malvern Prep school who have an 8 man Dreher sculling tank installed.

You can see coach Craig Hoffman in the background (he's the one holding the paper).  

The lads use the special Dreher tank sculls and you can clearly see the the bolt-together sections of the tank along the back wall, the walkway so coaches can get close to correct athletes' technique and the mirrors so athletes can see themselves.

We interviewed Coach Hoffman for the newsletter at Henley Royal Regatta.

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Image via Wikipedia

Ian South, longtime Kingston Rowing Club coach and former coach to  internationals Rebecca Romero, Sarah Birch and Jen Goldsack has been testing and reviewing sculls for an article in the UK Rowing and Regatta magazine.

We sent him a pair of Dreher carbon adjustable Apex (£399), Dreher Club Big Blades (£350) and Dreher Aeros (£499) to add to the large pile of competing brands.

I won't spoil the output of the article but he did give us some feedback:

An athlete using any of the Dreher sculls can immediately tell that they feel different.  Event the least competent sculler I gave them to could determine the difference between Drehers and the other brands.  The grip in the water is noticable.

The Drehers came up favourably compared to the others.  

I was particularly impressed with the Club sculls - these should be selling well in the clubs - they are well designed and the price is extremely favourable.

I tested the stiffness using a deflection test for all the sculls using a laser level and a 10kg weight and the Drehers were stiff and consistent. 

This is a good blade.  It is the only one in the marketplace that is robust and is manufactured consistently the same.

If you are a club, why spend an extra £50 [on a different brand] you won't get anything more for it.

You'll have to wait for the whole article to come out to get the rest of his comparison to other designs.

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We got an enquiry from Seema Khehar of Putney Town Rowing Club

Hi Rebecca,

Quick query for you - I (and a couple of others from PTRC) bought our
Dreher Sculls from you. Is there any maintainence I can do on the
sculls - the shaft and spoons are getting pretty battered. We were not
sure if there was a product we can use to spruce up again…

Kind Regards

Seema

Here is our reply:

Suggested Maintenance

1. To clean the sculls, use white spirit twice a year – this removes all grease and watermarks.
2. Wash the handles using detergent and a sponge to keep grips grease-free every week.
3. When you come in to land turn the spoons so the tips are down to the ground and don’t allow them to scrape along the ground as this wears out the back of the spoon.  The back of the spoon is important for hydrodynamic lift http://www.rowperfect.co.uk/news/hydrodynamic-lift-why-its-important-in-oar-and-scull-design/
4. Pushing off from the bank, square the blade so it pushes equally off the length of the spoon tip so one part doesn’t wear more than others

Replacing scull parts

Ultimately, the sculls will wear out.  But the Dreher design is modular.  It is comprised three parts – handle, shaft and spoon.  If you want to replace one part we can do this for you.  For example, if the corners of your spoons are worn we can replace just the spoons and you an re-use the shafts and handles and get a refurbished set of sculls for a good price.

Each scull blade £66.55
Each scull shaft with button and sleeve £83.19
Each scull handle £45.00

Labour £25 per hour.  It’ll take one hour to change the spoon or shaft.  You can replace the handles yourself with an 8mm spanner.

We consider it important for clubs and individuals who own Drehers that if you have a breakage or your sculls wear out, you can get them refurbished without having to go to the expense of buying a whole new set.

Tideway Scullers School had a quad set of Big Blade Dreher Sculls- they chose to replace the spoons on these and then to re-use the old, more worn spoons with new Club scull design shafts and handles (Club sculls are cheaper) thus making up two quad sets for less than the price of a new set.

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Many of you will know Raymond Sims boatbuilders of Nottingham.  Ray was the very first agent for Dreher oars and sculls when they first started exporting to the UK.

We got an enquiry from Nick Mills of Molesey Boat Club who wanted to try some out and it turned out Ray was the person who steered him our way.  

I wrote a quick thank you to Ray and this is what he said

I always favoured Drehers blades, I think the company is very innovative and generally the quality is high, I think their new shapes are far more efficient than the(Concept2) Big blade, so no problem recommending them.

Not looking for anything in return, but if anybody thinking of buying a well built boat, maybe you could give them a nod this way.

So if you are thinking about buying a boat Ray's website is the brilliantly named Rowing.co.uk 

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Lynette Skelton has a prominent photo on page 24 of UK's Rowing and Regatta magazine winning at Henley Veterans Regatta in her new Intersport Racing "predator" single and Dreher carbon adjustable sculls.

She uses Little big blade spoons, medium stiffness shafts and small handles.

Rowperfect spoke to Lynette about the race adn she said

It is most exciting making it onto the ARA Magazine.  It was an interesting race as I was told about the woman from USA who is 6 feet tall and very good.  I wasn't particularly well and am even worse now, but hopefully will be fit again for Vienna.
 
Towards the start I took note of her sculling and decided that she wasn't quite as good as people had made her out to be.  I had a good start and just kept moving out from there.  I decided to bring the rating down by 200 to go, and heard the announcer say that I was rating 22, of course, thinking of Mahe Drysdale our Kiwi star who lowers his rating when he is that far in front, and coasted home to win by "easily". 
 
I can't say enough about the Intersport scull, which is comfortable, 14kgs and is so easy to row, the same goes for the Dreher blades, a formidable combination to do well in any race.
 

We saw that Martin Cross wrote a huge number of articles…. and despite a nice mention of all the kiwi crews that won at HRR, the photo caption sub-editor managed to conceal this omitting a single photo of non-British crews.  Further they captioned Hodge and Reed as "Andy Hodge and Pete Reed were semi-finalists in the Goblets" leaving it up to us to work out they were losing semi-finalists. Later reporting on the Munich world cup the photo of Grainger says "Katherine Grainger is enjoying her single".  Does that mean her race results weren't worth mentioning? Funny pecuiliar.

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More photos from the Dart Totnes pair and a message

 
Keep getting better and better…We're both really enjoying using the blades! Thank you again!
 
James

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