The steering oar or steering board is an oversized oar or board to control the direction of a ship or other watercraft prior to the invention of the rudder.
It is normally attached to the starboard side in larger vessels, though in smaller ones it is rarely, if ever, attached. The steering oar was crucial in the invention of larger vessels in a time when the technology for rudders did not exist. Steering oars were the typical steering mechanism on larger Viking ships.
Famous quotes containing the words steering and/or oar:
“In our most trivial walks, we are constantly, though unconsciously, steering like pilots by certain well-known beacons and headlands, and if we go beyond our usual course we still carry in our minds the bearing of some neighboring cape; and not till we are completely lost, or turned round,—for a man needs only to be turned round once with his eyes shut in this world to be lost,—do we appreciate the vastness and strangeness of nature.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“There are no galley-slaves in the royal vessel of divine love—every man works his oar voluntarily!”
—St. Francis De Sales (1567–1622)