An Oar Problem

Reader Jason recently wrote:

Mike,
This is my 4th year around rowing and my first year as an official equipment manager. Our club is without boathouse and our equipment spends most of its time outside. We try to put our oars under something, but many of our novice oars are older and starting to show age. One particular problem we’re running into is that the fiberglass on the shafts is starting to splinter up and get rough. This makes young novice arms very itchy and unpleasant. We’ve been talking about spraying the shafts with clearcoat to seal them, do you have any better ideas or can you suggest a good product to seal them?

My Response: Thanks for your question . . . and I think that you might have a pretty significant problem going on with the oars. My suggestion, call CII immediately, and ask their opinion. You’ve got a serious case of photo degradation, which if that is the case, you probably won’t want to be using the oars since the chance of them shattering/breaking might be significantly increased. However,  see what the folks in Vermont have to say. In the meantime, do you have a photo of them? That might help us better understand the issue.