A few months ago I was contacted by one of my rowing industry friends with a need to find some timber oars for a project.

Aside from being a handy oarsman, lovely fella, and a very talented cabinet maker, Rob has created some very unique rowing related pieces of furniture and art. His website has some lovely images in the galleries.

Rob was creating a special ceiling light fitting for a client that used a number of oar blades. At first I was imagining something a bit like a ceiling fan, but he had come up with something much more clever than that. It wasn’t until he returned the blades to me for painting that I could see how clever he had been.

Once I had painted up the blades in the assorted club colours that the client and their family had rowed for, Rob did the final assembly and installation.

I think you’ll agree that this works very well!