I don't really care for oar rites. I have found that when back trolling, you often want to feather the oars so that you dont take a full stroke. Not possible with oar rites. Someone else brings up a good question on this tread, how far apart do you like to have your hands when rowing. I like them close. As far as counter balanced oars, I have a set of Sawyer hybrid counter balanced oars and these are great while actually back trolling, but suck the rest of the time. I most often use Sawyer lites.