Proper angle for pins and clips?

[Ben B]

I am building a frame for my 14ft. Wave destroyer tubes. I am currently designing my oar towers. Zach has mentioned several times that the pins should be straight up and down or perpendicular to the ground. The other frames I am using as examples have the pins leaning out so they are closer to perpendicular to the oars when in the water. It makes sense to me for the pins to be perpendicular to the oars when they are under the most load in the water, but I would like to know the argument for having them straight up. I am sure Zach has a great engineer’s explanation.

[Zach]

I like them straight up with the NRS frames. It may be an aesthetic thing with the NRS oar towers because I’ve used them at around 20 degrees for most of my commercial guiding.

Unfortunately I have no good explanation for the angle they should be. My take is that anywhere between 0 degrees and 20 degrees from vertical should be fine and the exact angle is not a huge deal.

There are some good photos in this article that show the 20-ish degree angle: https://www.nwrafting.com/river-equipment/oar-locks-vs-pins-and-clips.

[Ben B]

Thanks, Zach that makes sense. I agree the NRS towers look a little “Broken” when they are slanted out. I will shoot for somewhere in the 20-ish range for this frame.

[Author]

Posts