I have gotten practice rowing. I did a little more work on my oar handles and they feel much better. I will say it takes me some “umpf” to move the boat. I have very little to compare it to in my experience. My 11’ dinghy weighed about a third of the CIY and probably took a third of the energy to row. After rowing for an hour my forearms and hands were really fatigued though I was rowing dead into a light breeze of maybe 4-5 mph. My oars are 9’, so the amount of leverage I get is reduced over the shorter oars I had previously. 10’ oars, which is what the Shaw and Tenney formula suggests, would really take some pulling. Not sure of my speed. I’ll have to take out my GPS next time.
Looking forward to some wind but we’re headed into summer now. We’ll see.