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MLB says Yankees’ new “torpedo bats” are legal and likely coming

(thelibertyline.com)
302 points cf100clunk | 2 comments | 31 Mar 25 15:27 UTC | HN request time: 0.433s | source
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metalman ◴[31 Mar 25 17:14 UTC] No.43537334[source]▶
Love this! I helped make wooden oars, that were used by competitors in international rowing competitions, that had blades designed by someone at MIT, back in the day, on a computer(golley gee), but we made them by hand, and as they were, only wood, they were legal for use, and all the champions used them. we also made oars for "bostan bay bantry boat rigs" that won while crewed by inner city kids, we cheated a bit, and snuck some carbon fibre in but nobody even knew what that was, 18' oars, 2 kids to each, 16 oars per boat, plus the tiller. ash for the majors was sometimes sourced from granpa's farm in Pa, which he was proud of, take me into the woods to.show how strait they were, and how the deer had et, everything down to the dirt. next up, would be expoloring how a little texture from a poorly finnished bat, might add a little energy transfer to the ball
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vessenes ◴[31 Mar 25 19:05 UTC] No.43538552[source]▶
Rowing family here : what’s the current state of the art in oars?
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1. metalman ◴[01 Apr 25 02:00 UTC] No.43542067[source]▶
what we were building was radical @ the time, and may still be. The design of the blades was essentialy flat on one side, and had a more complicated profile on the back the shaft was an I beam made from strait grained spruce, capped with ash, and then capped again in beach through the oar locks, and we snuck carbon fibre between the spruce and ash. the longest oars were 18', and it was possible to put a handle under the bench, and a shop stand under the oar lock and go out and bounce up and down on the blades 15' out from the shop stand we also made many oars for the international dorry races, which is regulated to "what could have been built useing traditional materials and methods" which ours were, cept for the cfd bieng done at mit we also made paddles, and handles, but paddles do better now, in strait carbon, but oars need flex, and work as a spring we had a couple of raceing skiffs at the shop and those sure are a hoot
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2. vessenes ◴[01 Apr 25 04:10 UTC] No.43542755[source]▶
I’ve passed this on to the coach. She’s pretty traditional, but we’ll see what comes of it! Update: she’s impressed.