Rowing race

“ It is an inspiriting sight for any one who wishes to get an idea of an Eton race to see the crowds of men and boys, masters and pupils, [Pg 243] wetbobs and drybobs, running along the bank with the race, some so far ahead that they can see nothing, some with the boats, some tired out and lagging behind, but all shouting for a particular crew or individual as if their lives depended on it. ”

“ The habits taught by rowing, whether during training or after the race has commenced, lead to regularity of life, to abstemiousness, and to the avoidance of unwholesome tastes, and their effect is seen long after the desire for aquatic glory have passed away. ”

“ Later on, when your men are doing their rowing work at thirty-six or more, and when they are, or ought to be, well together, you may drop the rate of paddling to twenty-six or twenty-five, in order to give them periods of rest, and to [Pg 99] instil into them that steadiness of swing which they are apt to neglect when engaged in the effort of working up the stroke to racing pace. For a course of a mile to a mile and a half, a crew should be able to start at forty, continue at thirty-eight, and, if necessary, finish at forty in the race. ”

“ If you are an Oxford or a Cambridge freshman you will have been carefully drilled in a tub-pair, promoted later to a freshmen's four or eight, and during the next term may have been included in the Torpid or Lent-Boat of your College. At any rate, I am assuming that you have by now rowed in a race or a series of races for eight-oared crews on fixed seats. But I prefer to leave the general subject of combined rowing, whether in eights or fours, to a later chapter, while I attempt to explain the mysteries and difficulties of the sliding seat. ”

“ If the number of entries at Henley Regatta, the extension of the sphere of influence of the A.R.A. and the public interest in the Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race, may be taken as tests, rowing has more than held its own among the various competing forms of recreation in the world of British amateur athletic sport. ”

“ Beyond the island the Rover gained rapidly; but as soon as she turned and began beating homeward, the Wave showed that tacking was her strong point and began, in turn, to make up all the advantage the Rover had gained.
The Rover’s pirate-king cast a troubled eye at the distant goal and at the slowly but steadily advancing Wave.
His younger brother noticed the look.
“If one could only do something,” he exclaimed, impatiently. “That’s the worst of sailing races. In a rowing race you can pull till you break your back, if you want to ”

“ Thanks to Mr Blunt, our crew had learned to master that steady, strong sweep of the oars which is universally admitted to be the perfection of rowing style and the most serviceable of all strokes. Rowed well through from first to last, gripping the water the instant the oar is back and the body and arms forward, and dragged clean through without jerk or plunge, the swing of the bodies regular as clockwork, the feather clear and rapid—this essentially is the kind of rowing which not only puts most pace into the boat, but is capable of being sustained far longer than any other. ”

“ After dining, and allowing the boat to drift while rearranging my provisions, I took my place, and, getting the proper bearings astern, bent on the oars.
To those who have rowed only clumsy country-boats, with their awkward row-locks and wretched oars, slimy, dirty, and leaking, trailing behind tags and streamers of pond-weed, or who have only experimented with that most uncivilized style of digging up the water called paddling, the real pleasure of rowing is unknown. ”

“ Your back aches, your wrists feel limp as wet strings, and your chest is absolutely bursting, and yet you do not seem to be able to put one good stroke in; the boat slips away from you all the time. So for weeks and months runs your daily experience. But when the rudiments of rowing are mastered at last, when patient attention and hard exercise have made you strong, and taught you when and where to use your strength, then comes the reward. ”

“ No one who understands rowing will assert that even the two strongest members of either University crew can row in the same style in tub practice as in their eight at her full speed, or, seeing them, will fail to perceive that they row entirely different strokes in the tub and in the eight. Again, the style of rowing proved by practical experience to be best in seaside racing is entirely different from the style successful in river racing. Yet another style is essential to success in races rowed in the heavier boats used by men-of-war's men. ”

“ Then, as he swings his body, grips the water and drives his swirling oar-blade through, he will feel that every ounce of strength he puts forth has its direct and appreciable influence upon the pace of the boat. Not for him then will it be to envy the bird in its flight, as, with all his muscles braced, his lungs clear, and his heart beating soundly, he helps to make his craft move like a thing of life over the water. ”

“ As contests I should select a hard day's shooting over dogs, cross-country riding, tug-of-war, boxing, long-distance rowing, or, in fact, any contest in which the special element of racing in light ships has no part. For such contests I could pick, not eight, but eighty men well over thirty years old, and if the limit were extended to twenty-four years of age I could secure an army. Is there any one who doubts that my rowing men would knock the non-athletes into a cocked hat? For it must be remembered that the bulk of rowing men are not exclusively devoted to oarsmanship. ”

“ The rowers are stalwart fellows whose basalt backs shine in the sun as they bend to the oar; in rowing they walk towards the cabin and pull the heavy oars as they step backwards, and every sweep is accompanied by the burst of a refrain in chorus, a wild response to a line that has been chanted by the leader as they stepped forwards. The passengers sit immoveable in the sun and regard us with a calmness and gravity which are only attainable near the equatorial regions, where things approach an equilibrium. ”

“ Sailing is of course delicious; it is as good as flying to steer anything with wings of canvas, whether one stand by the wheel of a clipper-ship, or by the clumsy stern-oar of a "gundalow." But rowing has also its charms; and the Indian noiselessness of the paddle, beneath the fringing branches of the Assabeth or Artichoke, puts one into Fairyland at once, and Hiawatha's _cheemaun_ becomes a possible possession. Rowing is peculiarly graceful and appropriate as a feminine exercise, and any able-bodied girl can learn to handle one light oar at the first lesson, and two at the second ”

“ The unpractised eye may detect very little difference between the best and the worst oarsmen in such crews as Oxford and Cambridge yearly send to contend for the blue-riband of the river. But differences exist; and if the best man of the crew were replaced by one equal in rowing ability to the worst, or vice versâ, an important difference would be observed in the time of rowing over the racing course, under similar conditions of wind, tide, and so forth. Accordingly, a large field for the selection of the men is a most important advantage. ”

“ The novice, having passed successfully through his period of apprenticeship, is by this time ready, let us suppose, to be included in an eight-oared, sliding-seat crew, either for his college or for the rowing club to which he may happen to belong. He will marvel at first at the fragile and delicate fabric of the craft in which he is asked to take his place. One-eighth of an inch of cedar divides him from the waters that are to be the scene of his prowess. In stepping into the boat he must exercise the greatest care. ”

“ And now it remains that I should point out that peculiarity in what may be called the Cambridge style of rowing—though it is not now systematically adopted by Cambridge crews—to which the defeats of the light-blue flag in the years 1861-69 were I believe to be chiefly attributed.
It should be remembered that before we can recognise a peculiarity of style as the cause of a long series of defeats, it must be shown that the peculiarity is neither trifling nor accidental. There are peculiarities in rowing which have a very slight effect upon the speed with which the boat is propelled by the crew. ”

“ But you will observe, that, in riding on horseback, you always have a feeling, that, after all, it is not you that do the work, but the animal, and this prevents the satisfaction from being complete.
Now let us look at the conditions of rowing. I won’t suppose you to be disgracing yourself in one of those miserable tubs, tugging in which is to rowing the true boat what riding a cow is to bestriding an Arab. ”

“ By-and-by, I began to question if rowing on a river is as pleasant as rowing on a lake, where you can rest on your oars without losing ground, where no current opposes progress, and after the stroke the boat slips ahead some distance of its own impetus. On the river the boat only travels as far as you actually pull it at each stroke; there is no life in it after the scull is lifted, the impetus dies, and the craft first pauses and then drifts backward. ”

“ A rowboat is a safer craft than a canoe, and rowing is not a difficult feat, but there is a difference between the rowing of a heavy flat-bottomed boat and rowing a light skiff or round-bottomed rowboat. In rowing properly one's body does most of the work and the strain comes more on the muscles of the back than on those of the arms.
In paddling you face the bow of the canoe; in rowing you are turned around and face the stern of your boat. In paddling you reach forward and draw your paddle back; in rowing you lean back and pull your oars forward. ”

“ They fix these to their saddles, along with their other baggage, and tie the whole to their horse's tail, sitting upon the whole bundle as a kind of boat or float; and the man who guides the horse is made to swim in a similar manner, sometimes having two oars to assist in rowing, as it were, across the river. ”

“ For the rowing is excellent and the oar is put directly into the water, because it is trusted solely to the hands, without being fastened to anything. That is a custom that obliges them to have their craft very flat, and to elevate the sides but little, and they are content to leave but one plank out of the water. ”

“ In the eyes of these young gentlemen, the veterans whom they occasionally condescended to invite to their practice were harmless and well-meaning enthusiasts, who might have made a figure in their day, but who were, of course, utterly unable to appreciate the niceties of rowing as developed by their brilliant and skilful successors. ”

“ The oar in this case is put out behind the boat, that is, at the stern, and is moved to and fro in a peculiar manner, somewhat resembling the motion of the tail of a fish when he is swimming through the water. It is difficult to learn how to scull. Antony could scull pretty well in smooth water, but he could not have worked his way in this manner against an ebb tide.
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Pulling, as Antony called it, is another name for rowing. In rowing, it is necessary to have two oars. To row a boat requires more strength, though less skill, than to scull it. ”

“ And this style in the rowing sense merely sums up the result, whether to individuals or to a crew, of long and patient teaching founded upon principles the correctness of which has been established ever since rowing became not merely an exercise, but a science in keelless racing ships. And here one comment may be added. It is the habit of every generation of rowing men to imagine that they have invented rowing all over again, and have at last, by their own intelligence and energy, established its principles on a firm foundation. ”

“ The secret of good rowing is the simultaneous application of leg and bodywork from end to end of the stroke. The instant the blades are covered the whole weight must be lifted from the stretcher and applied to the oar-handle, and must remain so applied until the hands come in to the chest. In order to ensure that the pressure so applied to the blade shall be as long and as lhard as possible, the body must be swung forward to its full extent, and during the stroke the shoulders must always be swinging back faster than the seat, while at the same time the legs are driving hard at the stretcher. ”

“ This consists in bringing the edge of the blade parallel with the water—a splendid exercise for the wrists— then turning the blade as it reaches the water, and with all the strength of every muscle drawing the oars steadily, never jerkily, till the stroke is finished. The one purpose is to keep up a uniform speed, and this can be done only by a uniform stroke. Endurance, rather than mere brute strength, is the thing to be kept in mind in rowing, as in everything else requiring effort. Always have in reserve a stock of endurance to be used should occasion require. ”

“ In old times, rowing used to be the penalty to which galley-slaves were condemned, but now it is commended by athletes as the best of all forms of exercise for developing the body and for furnishing stimulating competition. ”

“ Hence we can understand the long series of victories gained by the light-blue oarsmen in the 'old fashioned racing eights'. But when we come to consider the case of a boat like the present wager-boat—a boat which answers immediately to the slightest propelling force—we see that that mode of rowing must be the most effective which permits the oar to have the least possible motion through the water, which lifts the boat along from the water as from an almost stable fulcrum. ”