OK guys, ya got me convinced about carrying the spare oar...

Can't think of too many places on the Skagit where I might lose an oar, but I guess that's the reason to carry the spare in the first place...:-)

I have 9' ClackaCraft PowerStroke oars for the boat, which is a 13'. Maybe a bit more oar than needed, but there's lots of room in this river.

My question is that I have the old set of wood oars for this boat, and could carry one as a spare. They are, however, only 7 1/2' oars, so if I had to put it into use in an emergency, it would be 18" shorter than the other side.

Does this negate me fixing up one of them and carrying that oar as a spare? Does the spare have to be the same length as the main oars?

(Might be a dumb question to some, but keep in mind I'm a rowing rookie...and I still have a alotment of 5 "dumb" questions left.)

Mike