At 11:03 PM 3/18/99 -0500, you wrote:

..and there's people like Musashi, who it is said won one of his
earliest duels hung over, half asleep, with nothing but an oar fashioned
into a bokken. His opponent, by the way, was supposedly a skilled and
experienced warrior with a magnicently crafted blade.

My roommate, in quoting from the OVERLOOK PRESS release of A BOOK OF FIVE
RINGS, by Miyamoto Musashi.  (ISBN #0-87951-153-2) pointed out that Musashi
had used an oar to kill his opponent.   

Having read the account of the duel [provoked by Musashi's foe spreading a
rumor that Musashi feared the subtlety of one of his developed techniques]
on page 17 of the book, it is ambiguous whether or not he actually used an
oar, or a wooden sword carved from the oar on the way to the duel.  In one
paragraph it says that he carved a sword from a spare oar, but in the next
paragraph, describes him using the oar to defeat his opponent.