Sculling DIY Project

Recycling a shell and blade into a garden water feature.

Editor's Note: Following an email exchange with Lynn Jennings (Craftsbury Running Camps' Director and frequent sculling camper) about a recent fun backyard project, I asked if she'd write up her work. She generously agreed and you can read the results below!

My education as a sculler has taught me many things, but first and foremost, when there is water in your 1x you are doing something wrong. Laying that lesson aside, I recently created a backyard water feature utilizing a beautiful stern section of a wood 1960's era Pocock 8.

Craftsbury sculling coach Lisa Schlenker has a garage full of these shell sections and an accompanying pile of wooden blades and seats. She rescued the 8's from an unhappy ending and has begun turning them into interesting objets d'art. She made a beautiful coffee table out of one mid-section and has always wanted to make a water feature out of a stern section. This latter idea is the one I took hold of and ran with.

I started with my "pond" for the feature. With matte black spray paint, I transformed a large galvanized wash tub into the perfect pool and placed a magnetic drive utility pump into the tub. I semi-buried the wash bucket into the ground and spray painted the emerging length of vinyl tube the same matte black.

Lisa's idea was to stand the stern upright and thread the vinyl tube up into the stern. The tube was fitted to a coupling and a copper elbow section and clamped to the top interior cross piece. Graduated lengths of copper pipe were clamped onto successive interior cross pieces below and a copper tee fitting was placed on the end of each length of pipe.

The graduated lengths of copper pipe with the tee fitting created the perfect long foundation for a section of colored roof flashing. Glued to the copper tees and fluted and bent just so, the flashing creates the downward funnel for the water. As the water is pumped up the vinyl tubing it emerges on to and down the length of the flashing. A wooden Pocock blade was clamped onto the next cross piece down and the water runs out of the flashing and onto the blade and drops into the semi-buried tub of water.

Because the tub is black it recedes perfectly amidst the ferns and grasses planted around it and it's barely visible. It took some experimentation to figure out that a slightly larger diameter vinyl tube was desirable to get the right amount of water volume and splash off the blade and into the bucket. Getting the flashing set correctly was a bit tricky, too. Luckily, I had an exterior electrical outlet off my back porch so running the power cord from the submerged pump was a cinch.

The stern section sculpture is a happy addition to my backyard habitat and the resident hummingbirds, juncos and kinglets are enjoying it. I can see and hear the moving water from my kitchen windows and doors. During the long winter months, it will be reassuring to see a rowing shell every day - even if it does have water in it.

-Lynn Jennings