Well, if the blades are leaking, there's not a lot to do about it. It's also not a lot of water in the carlisle blades. If the oar shafts are filling up, you're dipping your oars waaaay too far into the water. You (almost) never need to put the shaft into the water.

If your oars are feeling heavy to hold out of the water, try counterbalances (not a great solution, imo) or adjust your frame/oar geometry to move the oarlock closer to the oar center of gravity.

 

Cataract oar blades have a small rubber o-ring where the blade shaft meets the oar shaft. I don't know if carlisles have this same o ring. Maybe give cataract and Carlisle a call and see if you can just get the o rings. Should not be too pricey. Maybe be try NRS too cause they pick up the phone.

before buying my cataracts, I used homemade oars with aluminum pipe shafts. I sprayed water proof expanding foam inside the shaft near the blade end to prevent water from coming up in the shaft. Worked. And cost about $6.

And yes. your shafts should touch the water once and a while. Especially in whitewater, where a rower/paddler needs to dig deep to contact that high velocity dark water for a powerful stroke. not just the bubbles and foam on top, also known as "Lilly dipping"

 

Digging deep to catch some of that water that's running out the bottom of the hole you're stuck in can be a valid technique, but it's also a good way to rip up a shoulder, lose some teeth, or get launched out of the boat because of the difference in speeds between you and the fast water. Ever try to pull out of an eddy into fast current, and let the blade that's in the current side of the boat bite a tiny bit too much and have the oar yanked right down river, while you follow the handle right upriver and out of your seat?

I'm not saying never get your oar shafts wet, but that driving your shafts that deep on 99.9% of strokes is overkill, and not only doesn't help much, but is actually quite inefficient and risky.

It's also such a small amount of water that would be in the first foot of shaft past the blade that I still think the OP's got a geometry problem before he's got a water in the oar problem. What I would be worried about regarding water in the shafts is that they're going to sink in a hurry if you lose one.

 

Give cataract a call, they will send you some new foam plugs for the oars. You will want to shove the leaking plugs all the way up to the handle, making sure to squeeze out the water. Then insert new plugs.

 

You can also get some rubber stoppers at the hardware store that will give you a tighter fit than the Cataract plugs and won't shrink and slip out like the factory foam.I can't remember the size off the top of my head #9 or 9.5 maybe. Just spray them with silicone and use a large piece of wood to tap them down the shaft past he point where the blade seats. You want a tight fit.

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I cracked a blade last year in a bad film/pin. I am lucky bc i work at a place where i can easily fix things so I just wrapped the damaged area in carbon fiber and epoxy resin. Fixed it good as new.