River at Bisham CourtBISHAM COURT REACH.
BISHAM COURT REACH.
The ‘cock-swain’ wins his place chiefly on account of his weight, provided that he can show a reasonable amount of nerve and skill of hand. A coxswain is seldom a very practical oarsman, although there have been special exceptions to this rule, e.g. in the case of T. H. Marshall, of Exeter, Arthur Shadwell, of Oriel, and a few others. But if he has been any length of time at his trade he very soon picks up a very considerable theoretical knowledge of what rowing should be, and is able to do very signal service in the matter of instructing the men whom he pilots. When a youth begins to handle the rudder-lines there is often some considerable difficulty in inducing him to open his mouth to give orders of any sort. Even such biddings as to tell one side of oars to hold her, or another to row or to back-water, come at first falteringly from his lips. It is butnatural that he should feel his own physical inferiority to the men whom he is for the moment required to order about so peremptorily, and diffidence at first tends to make him dumb. But he soon picks up hisrôlewhen he listens to the audacious orders and objurgations of rival pilots, and he is pleased to find that the qualities of what he might modestly consider to be impudence and arrogance are the very things which are most required of him, and for the display of which he earns commendation.
Having once found his tongue, he soon learns to use it. When there is a coach in attendance upon the crew, the pilot is not called upon to animadvert on any failings of oarsmen; but when the coach is absent the coxswain is bound to say something, and, if he has his wits about him, he soon picks up enough to make his remarks more or less to the purpose. The easiest detail on which he offers an opinion is that of time of oars. At first he feels guilty of ‘cheek’ in singing out to some oarsman of good standing that he is out of time. He feels as if he should hardly be surprised at a retort not to attempt to teach his grandmother; but, on the contrary, the admonition is meekly accepted, and the pilot begins at once to gain confidence in himself. Daily he picks up more and more theoretical knowledge; he notes what a coach may say of this or that man’s faults, and he soon begins to see when certain admonitions are required. At least he can play the parrot, and can echo the coach’s remarks when the mentor is absent, and before long he will have picked up enough to be able to discern when such a reproof is relevant and when it is not. In his spare time he often paddles a boat about on his own account, and this practice materially assists him in understanding the doctrines which he has to preach. As a rule, coxswains row in very good form, when they row at all; and before their career closes many of them, though they have never rowed in a race, can teach much more of the science of oarsmanship than many a winning oar of a University race or of a Grand Challenge Cup contest.
A coxswain is the lightest item in the crew, but unless he sits properly he can do much harm in disturbing the balance of a light boat. He should sit with a straight back; if he slouches, he has not the necessary play of the loins to adapt himself to a roll of the boat. He should incline just a trifle forward; the spring of the boat at each stroke will swing him forward slightly, and he will recoil to an equal extent on the recovery. His legs should be crossed under him, like a tailor on a shop-board, with the outside of each instep resting on the floor of the boat. He should hold his rudder-lines just tight enough to feel the rudder. If he hangs too much weight upon them, he may jam the tiller upon the pin on which it revolves, so that, when the rudder has been put on and then taken off, the helm does not instantly swing back to the exactstatus quo ante; and in that case the calculation as to course may be disturbed, and a counter pull from the other line become necessary, in order to rectify the course.
A coxswain will do best to rest his hand lightly on either gunwale, just opposite to his hips. He should give the lines a turn round his palms, to steady the hold on them. Many coxswains tie a loop at the required distance, and slip the thumb through it; but such a loop should not be knotted too tight, for when rudder-lines get wet they shrink; so that a loop which was properly adjusted when the line was dry will be too far behind in event of the strings becoming soaked.
When a coxswain desires to set a crew in motion, the usual formula is to tell the men to ‘get forward,’ then to ask if they are ‘ready,’ and then to say ‘go,’ ‘row,’ or ‘paddle,’ as the case may be. When he wishes to stop the rowing, without otherwise to check the pace of the boat, the freshwater formula is ‘easy all,’ at which command the oars are laid flat on the water. In the navy the equivalent term is ‘way enough.’ ‘Easy all’ should be commanded at the beginning, or at latest at the middle, of a stroke, otherwise it is difficult for the men to stop all together and to avoid a half-commencement of the next stroke.
If a boat has to be suddenly checked and her way stopped, the order is ‘Hold her all.’ The blades are then slightly inclined towards the bow of the boat, causing them to bury in the water, and at the same time not to present a square surface to back-water. The handle of the oar should then be elevated, and more and more so as the decreasing way enables each oarsman to offer more surface resistance to the water. So soon as the way of the boat has been sufficiently checked, she can be backed or turned, according to what may be necessary in the situation.
In turning a long racing-boat care should be taken to do so gently, otherwise she may be strained. If there is plenty of room, she can be turned by one side of oars ‘holding’ her, while bow, and afterwards No. 3 also, paddle her gently round. If there is not room for a wide turn, then stroke and No. 6 should back water gently, against bow, &c. paddling.
A coxswain, when he first begins his trade, is pleased to find how obedient his craft is to the touch of his hand; he pulls one string and her head turns that way; he takes a tug at the other line, and she reverses her direction. The ease with which he can by main force bring her, somehow or other, to the side of the river on which he desires to be tends at first to make him overlook how much extra distance he unnecessarily covers by rough-and-ready hauling at the lines. ‘Argonaut’[7]very lucidly uses the expression ‘a boat should becoaxedby its rudder,’ a maxim which all pilots will do well to make a cardinal point in their creed.
[7]Mr. E. D. Brickwood.
[7]Mr. E. D. Brickwood.
When a boat is once pointing in a required direction, and her true course is for the moment a straight one, the pilot should note some landmark, and endeavour to regulate his bows by aid of it, keeping the mark dead ahead, or so much to the right or to the left as occasion may require. In so doing he should feel his lines, and, so to speak, ‘balance’ his bows on hispoint d’appui. His action should be somewhat analogous to what the play of his hand would be if he were attempting tocarry a stick end upwards on the tip of his finger. He would quickly but gently anticipate the declination denoted by each wavering motion of the stick, checking each such deviation the moment it is felt. In like manner when steering he should, as it were, ‘hold’ his bows on to his steering point, regulating his boat by gentle and timely touches; if he allows a wide deviation to occur, before he begins to correct his course, he has then a widedétourto make before he can regain his lost position. All this means waste of distance and of rowing energy on the part of the crew.
In steering by a distant landmark the coxswain must bear in mind that the parallax of the distant mark increases as he nears it; so that what may point a true course to him, for all intents and purposes, when it is half a mile away, may lead him too much to one side or other if he clings to it too long without observing its altered bearing upon his desired direction.
When a coxswain has steered a course more than once he begins to know his landmarks and their bearing upon each part of the course. There is less strain upon his mind, and he becomes able to observe greater accuracy. There is nothing like having the ‘eye well in’ for any scene of action. A man plays relatively better upon a billiard-table or lawn-tennis ground to which he is well accustomed than on one to which he is a stranger; and a jockey rides a horse all the better for having crossed him before the day of a race. However good a coxswain may be, he will steer a course more accurately, on the average, in proportion as he knows it more or less mechanically.
There is also a good deal in knowing the boat which has to be steered. No two ships steer exactly alike. Some come round more easily than others; some fetch up into the wind more freely than others. In modern times it has been a common practice for builders to affix a movable ‘fin’ of metal to the bottom of a racing eight or four, under the after canvas, which fin can be taken out or fixed in at option. In a cross wind this helps to steady the track of a boat; but, unless wind is strong and is abeam for a good moiety of the distance, the draw of the waterall the way occasioned by the fin costs more than the extra drag of rudder which it obviates for just one part of the course.
In steering round a corner a coxswain should bear in mind that he must not expect to see his boat pointing in the direction to which he desires to make. His boat is a tangent to a curve, the curve being the shore. His bows will be pointing to the shore which he is avoiding. It is the position of his midship to the shore which he is rounding that he should especially note. The boat should be brought round as gradually as the severity of the wave will allow. If the curve is very sharp, like the corners of the ‘Gut’ at Oxford, or ‘Grassy’ or Ditton corners at Cambridge, the inside oars should be told to row light for a stroke or two. It will ease their labour, and also that of the oars on the other side.
When there is a stiff beam wind the bows of a racing craft tend to bear up into the wind’s eye. The vessel is making leeway all the time; therefore if the coxswain on such an occasion steers by a landmark which would guide him were the water calm, he will before long find himself much to leeward of where he should be. In order to maintain his desired course he should humour his boat, and allow her bow to hold up somewhat into the wind (to windward of the landmark which otherwise would be guiding him). To what extent he should do so he must judge for himself, according to circumstances and to his own knowledge of the leeward propensities of his boat. To lay down a hard-and-fast rule on this point would be as much out of place as to attempt to frame a scale of allowance which a Wimbledon rifleman ought to make for mirage or cross-wind, when taking aim at a distant bull’s-eye.
Generally speaking a coxswain should hug the shore when going against tide or stream, and should keep in mid-stream when going with it. (Mid-stream does not necessarily imply mid-river.) Over the Henley course, until 1886, a coxswain on the Berks side used to make for the shelter of the bank below Poplar Point, where the stream ran with less force. The alteration(for good) of the Henley course which was inaugurated in 1886 has put an end to this, and both racing crews now take a mid-stream course. The course is to all intents and purposes straight, and yet it will not do to keep the bows fixed on one point from start to finish. There is just a fraction of curve to the left in it, but so slight that one finger’s touch of a line will deflect a boat to the full extent required. The church tower offers a landmark by which all pilots can steer, keeping it more or less to the right hand of the bows, and allowing for the increase of its parallax as the boat nears her goal.
Over the Putney water the best course has changed considerably during the writer’s personal recollections. Twenty years ago the point entering to Horse Reach, and opposite to Chiswick Church, could be taken close. The Conservancy dredged the bed of the river, and also filled up a bight on the Surrey shore. This transferred the channel and the strongest current to the Middlesex side. In 1866 a head wind (against flood tide) off Chiswick raised the higher surf near to the towpath, showing that the main stream flowed there. It now runs much nearer to the Eyot.
Also the removal of the centre arch of old Putney Bridge drew the main flood tide more into mid-river than of old; and since then the new bridge has been built and the old one altogether removed, still further affecting the current in the same direction. There is a noticeable tendency in the present day, on the part of all pilots, whether in sculling matches or in eight-oar races, to take Craven Point too wide and to bear off into the bay opposite, on the Surrey shore. The course should be kept rather more mid-stream than of old, up to Craven steps, but the point should be taken reasonably close when rounding; there should not be, as has often been seen during the last six years, room for a couple more boats to race between the one on the Fulham side and the Craven bank.
In old days, when Craven Point used to be taken close, and when the set of the tide lay nearer to it than now, there ensued an important piece of pilotage called ‘making the shoot.’ Itconsisted in gradually sloping across the river, so as to take the Soapworks Point at a tangent, and thence to make for the Surrey arch of Hammersmith Bridge. This ‘shoot’ is now out of place: firstly, because the tide up the first reach from the start of itself now tends to bring the boat more into mid-river off the Grass Wharf and Walden’s Wharf; secondly, because the Soapworks Point should now be takenwide, and not close. The reason for this latter injunction is that the races of to-day, by agreement, go through the centre arch of Hammersmith Bridge. Now the flood tide does not run through the bridge at right angles to the span. It is working hard across to the Surrey shore. Therefore, if a boat hugs Soapworks Point as of old, and as if the course lay through the shore arch, that boat will have to come out,acrosstide, at an angle of about 25° to the set of the tide, in order to fetch the outer arch and to clear the buttress and the steamboat pier. Year after year the same blunder is seen. Pilots, of sculling boats and of eight-oars alike, wander away to the Surrey bay off Craven; then they hug the shore till they reach the Soapworks foot-bridge, and then they have to cross half the tide on their right before they can safely point for the outer arch of the Suspension Bridge. A pilot should endeavour to keep in mid-river off Rosebank and the Crab Tree, and after passing the latter point he will, while pointing his bows well to the right of the arch which he intends to pass under, find the river move to the left under him, until, with little or no use of rudder, he finds himself in front of his required arch just as he reaches the bridge.
After passing the bridge a boat should keep straight on for another two hundred yards, else it will get into dead water caused by the eddy of the Surrey pier. At Chiswick the course may be taken wide (save and except, as in all cases, where force of wind alters circumstances). The main tide runs nearest to Chiswick Eyot. Horse Reach should be entered in mid-river; there is little or no tide on the Surrey point below it.
Making for Barnes Bridge, the boat should keep fairly near to the Middlesex shore—how near depends upon whether therace is ordained to pass through the centre or the Middlesex arch of Barnes Bridge. Once through Barnes Bridge, the course should sheer in (if the centre arch has been taken) until the boat lies as if it had taken the shore arch. It should attain this position by the time it breasts the ‘White Hart.’ The river is here a horseshoe to the finish. In linear measure a boat on the Middlesex side has nearly two lengths less to travel than the one outside it between Barnes Bridge and the ‘Ship.’ The tide runs nearly as well within sixty feet of the shore as in mid-river at this point, hence it pays to keep about that distance from the Middlesex bank.
The old Thames watermen who instruct young pilots over the Putney course are often inclined to run too much in the grooves which were good in their younger days, when they themselves were racing on the river. Their instruction would be sound enough if the features of the river had not undergone change, as aforesaid, in sundry details. The repeated blunders of navigation lately seen perpetrated by watermen as well as amateurs between Craven Steps and Hammersmith make us lose much faith in watermen’s tuition for steering the metropolitan course. We would rather entrust a young pilot to some active member of the London or Thames Rowing Clubs. These gentlemen know the river well enough as it now is, and are not biassed by old memories of what it once was but is no longer.
University coxswains have easier tasks in these days than their predecessors before 1868. Until the Thames Conservancy obtained statutory powers in 1868 to clear the course for boat-racing, it used to be a ticklish matter to pick a safe course on a flood tide. There would be strings of barges towed, and many more sailing, others ‘sweeping,’ up river. Traffic did not stop for sport. Coxswains often found themselves in awkward predicaments to avoid such itinerant craft, more so when barges were under sail against a head wind, and were tacking from shore to shore. In 1866 a barge of this sort most seriously interfered with the Cambridge crew in Horse Reach, just when Oxford had, after a stern race, given them the go-by off theBathing-place. It extinguished any chance which might have been left for Cambridge.
In the preceding year C. R. W. Tottenham immortalised himself by a greatcoupwith a barge. She was tacking right across his course (Oxford had just gone ahead after having been led by a clear length through Hammersmith Bridge). This was just below Barnes Bridge. Many a pilot would have tried to go round the bows of that barge. At the moment when she shaped her course to tack across tide there seemed to be ample room to pass in front of her. Tottenham never altered his course, and trusted to his own calculations. Presently the barge was broadside on to Oxford’s bows, and only a few lengths ahead. Every one in the steamers astern stood aghast at what seemed to be an inevitable smash. The barge held on, and so did Oxford, and the barge passed clear away just before Oxford came up. Even if she had hung a little, in a lull of wind, it would have been easy for Oxford to deflect a trifle and pass under her stern. Anything was better than attempting to go round her bows, which at first seemed to be the simplest course to spectators not experts at pilotage. It must be admitted that so much nerve and judgment at a pinch have never before or since been displayed by any coxswain in a University match. Tottenham had his opportunity and made the most of it. He steered thrice afterwards, but even if he had never steered again he had made his reputation by this onecoup. In justice to other crack coxswains, such as Shadwell and Egan of old, and,par excellence, G. L. Davis in the present day, we must assume that if they had been similarly tried they would have been equally triumphant.
Feathering under the waterFEATHER ‘UNDER’ THE WATER.
FEATHER ‘UNDER’ THE WATER.
When sliding seats were first used they completely revolutionised oarsmanship, and caused old coaches whose names were household words to stand aghast at the invention.
The best use of them was but imperfectly realised by those who first adopted them; and many of the earliest examples of sliding-seat oarsmanship were sufficiently unorthodox, according to our improved use of them in the present day, to justify the declaration of more than one veteran whose opinion was always respected that—’if that is sliding, it is not rowing.’
The mechanical power gained by a sliding seat is so great that even if he who uses it sets at defiance all recognised principles of fixed-seat rowing, he can still command more pace thanif he adhered to fixed-seat work. It was the spectacle, in earlier days of the slide, of this unorthodox sliding style beating good specimens of fixed-seat oarsmanship which so horrified many of the retired good oarsmen of the fixed-seat school. Before long the true use of the slide became better understood, and thus oarsmen—at all events scientific amateurs—began to realise that, while bad sliding could manage to command more pace than good fixed rowing, yet at the same time good sliding (which will be explained hereafter) will beat bad sliding by even more than the latter can distance good fixed-seat work.
Just a similar sort of prejudice was displayed against the earlier style of rowing in keelless boats. When these craft first came in, oarsmen had little or no idea of ‘sitting’ them; they rolled helplessly, and lost all form, but nevertheless they travelled faster in the new craft than when rowing in good style in old-fashioned iron-shod keeled boats. In a season or two style reasserted itself, and it was found that it was by no means impossible to row in as neat a shape in a keelless boat as in a keeled one.
Sliding on the seat had been practised long before the sliding seat was invented, but only to a modified extent. Robert Chambers of St. Antony’s, the quondam champion, tried it now and then, and when preparing for his 1865 match with Kelley he used to slide a trifle, especially for a spurt, and to grease his seat to facilitate his operations. Jack Clasper, according to Mr. E. D. Brickwood’s well-known treatise on Boat-racing, used to slide to a small extent on a fixed seat when he rowed in a Newcastle four which won on the Thames in 1857. Of this detail the writer has himself no recollection. Also, in 1867, a Tyne sculler, Percy, tried sliding on a fixed seat in a sculling match against J. Sadler on the Thames (so Mr. Brickwood relates). But none of these earlier sliders made much good out of their novelty. The strain on the legs caused by the friction on the seat prevented the oarsman from maintaining the action for long, and meantime it took so much out of him that it prematurely exhausted his whole frame.
In 1870 Renforth’s champion four used to slide on the seat for a spurt, but not for a whole course. They beat the St. John’s Canadian crew very easily while so rowing in a match at Lachine, but we believe that they would have won with about as much ease had they rowed on fixed seats. In the same year a ‘John o’ Gaunt’ four from Lancaster came to Henley Regatta and rowed in this fashion, sliding on fixed seats. They had very little body swing, and their style showed all the worst features of the subsequent style which became too common when sliding seats were first established. They did almost all their work by the piston action of the legs, and their limbs tired under the strain at the end of three or four minutes. They led a light crew of Oxford ‘Old Radleians’ by three lengths past Fawley Court, and then began to come back to them. The Oxonians steadily gained on them, but had to come round outside them at the Point, and could never get past them, losing the race by less than a yard. Enough was seen on this occasion to convince oarsmen that the Lancastrian style was only good for half-mile racing. In the final heat for the Stewards’ fours a good L.R.C. crew beat the Lancastrians with ease after going half a mile. The Radleians would doubtless have also gone well by the Lancastrians had the course been a hundred yards longer.
So far the old fixed seat had vindicated itself for staying purposes. But in the following year a problem was practically solved. It seems that (so Mr. Brickwood tells us) an oarsman comparatively unknown to fame, one Mr. R. O. Birch, had used an actual sliding seat at King’s Lynn Regatta in 1870. Mr. Brickwood seems to have been the only writer who took cognisance of this interesting fact. University men and tideway amateurs, also professionals so far as we can gather, seem not to have heard of, or at least not to have heeded, the experiment. Had Mr. Birch been a leading sculler of the day, possibly the innovation might have been adopted earlier than it was.
Meantime in America the sliding seat had been better known, but had not been appreciated. Mr. Brickwood tells usthat a Mr. J. C. Babcock, of the Nassau Boat Club, constructed a sliding seat as long ago as 1857. Also that W. Brown, the American sculler, tried one in 1861, but abandoned it. In 1869 Mr. Babcock once more devoted himself to the study and construction of sliding seats, and brought out a six-oared crew rowing on slides. But the invention did not obtain much recognition, although Mr. Babcock was of opinion that his crew gained in power of stroke through the new apparatus.
How the seat came to be at length adopted arose thus. In 1871 two Tyne crews went to America to compete in regattas. One of these was Renforth’s crew, and, as detailed elsewhere, Renforth died during a race against the St. John crew. Robert Chambers (not the ex-champion) took his place later on for sundry regattas. The Tyne crews rowed with a good average of success in America. Taylor, who commanded the other Tyne four, raced a States four, called the Biglin-Coulter crew, rowing with sliding seats. These Biglin-Coulter men did not prove themselves, as a whole, any better than, if so fast as, the British crew; consequently there was nothing to draw especial attention to their apparatus. Of the two British crews, that stroked by Chambers proved itself on the whole, through various regattas, faster than Taylor’s four.
Taylor bided his time. He proposed a match on the Tyne between the two British fours, and the offer was accepted. The match came off in the fall of the same year. Taylor’s men had their boat fitted with sliding seats, and kept their apparatus ‘dark’ from the world and from their opponents. They used to cease sliding when watched, and kept their apparatus covered up. When the race came off, Taylor’s crew decisively reversed the American regatta form, and beat Chambers’s crew easily. This was ascribed to the slide, information as to which leaked out after the race. The next University race was not rowed with slides, but a couple of minor sculling races in the spring were rowed with them. In June of that year a very fine L.R.C. four (Messrs. J. B. Close, F. S. Gulston, A. de L. Long, and W. Stout) rowed a four-oared match on the Thames againstthe Atalanta Club of New York. The L.R.C. men used slides. That did not affect their victory; they were stronger and better oarsmen than the Americans, and could have won easily on fixed seats; but what gave a fillip to slides was the clear testimony of these four oarsmen of undoubted skill to the advantage which they felt themselves gain by their use. Instantly there was a run upon slides. Henley Regatta was impending. The L.R.C. crews were all fitted with them for that meeting. Several other crews took to them after reaching Henley, and after seeing the superiority which London obtained by them. Kingston and Pembroke (Oxon) had their boats fitted with slides less than a week before the race. Pembroke was a moderate crew, and only entered because they held the Ladies’ Plate. At first, in practice, Pembroke did about equal time over the course with Lady Margaret, both crews being on fixed seats. But the day after Pembroke got their slides they improved some 15 secs. upon the time of Lady Margaret, who kept to their old seats. It must, however, be recorded that the Ladies’ Plate was won by a fixed-seat crew—Jesus, Camb. This crew was by far the best in material of all the entries at the regatta. Their individual superiority enabled them to give away the slide to Pembroke, and had they taken to slides even for the last few days they would probably have also won the Grand Challenge. As it was, that prize fell to the L.R.C., a crew which had four good men, and then a weak tail. The sliding seat had now fairly established its claims. It should be added that Pembroke, with two good and two moderate men, won the Visitors’ Plate from a very good Dublin four, about the best four that Dublin ever sent to Henley. Pembroke used slides, and the Dublin men had fixed seats. (Slides alone won this race for Pembroke.) The Pembroke slides were on wheels—a mechanism which was soon afterwards discarded by builders in favour of greased glass or steel grooves or tubes, but which seems to be returning to favour in 1886 and 1887.
In order to understand the true action in a slide, it will be well to recall the action of fixed-seat rowing. On the fixed seat the swing of the body does the main work, being supported by the legs, which are rigid and bent.
On a slide the legs extend gradually, while at the same time they support the body. On a fixed seat the body moves as the radius of a circle that is stationary; on a slide the body moves as the radius of a circle which is itself in motion. Suppose a threepenny-piece and a half-crown placed alongside of each other, concentrically, with a common pivot. Let the threepenny-piece roll for a certain distance on the edge of a card. Then any point in the circumference of the half-crown will move through a curve called a ‘trochoid.’ This is practically the sort of curve described by the head or shoulders of an oarsman who rows upon a sliding seat.
The actual gain of rowing power by means of this mechanism is considerable. The exact extent of it is not easy to arrive at, there being various factors to be taken into consideration.
In the first place, the length of reach, or of the ‘stroke,’ is considerably increased. Mr. Brickwood in 1873 conducted some scientific experiments on dry land upon this subject, in conjunction with the editor of the ‘Field’ and Mr. F. Gulston. The result of these measurements was to demonstrate (in the person of Mr. F. Gulston) a gain of about 18 inches in length of stroke upon a 9-inch slide.
In 1881 some casual experiments of a similar sort were conducted on a lawn at Marlow by the Oxford crew then training there. The writer was present, and, so far as he remembers, the results practically confirmed the estimate of Mr. Brickwood above recorded, allowance being made for the fact that the gentleman by means of whose body the ideal stroke was measured at Marlow was longer-bodied and longer in the leg than Mr. Gulston.
As a second advantage, the sliding seat decidedly relieves the abdominal muscles and respiratory organs during the recovery. In dealing with scientific racing we have previously remarked that the point wherein a tiring oarsman first gives way is in his recovery, because of the relative weakness of the muscles which conduct that portion of the action of the stroke. It therefore is obvious that any contrivance which can enable a man to recover with less exertion to himself will enable him to do more work in the stroke over the whole course, and still more so if the very contrivance which aids recovery also gives extra power to the stroke.
On the other hand, there are two drawbacks to the slide. One of these is, that when sliding full forward the legs are more bent than would be the case on a fixed seat. The body cannot reach quite so far forward over the toes on a full slide as it can on a properly regulated fixed seat. This slightly detracts from the work of thebodyat the beginning of the stroke.
Again, when a slide is used to best advantage, the greatest mechanical benefit occurs just when the body arrives at the perpendicular, and when the legs are beginning to do the greater portion of their extension. This causes the greater force of the stroke to be applied behind the rowlock, in contradiction of all old theories of fixed-seat oarsmanship.
Taking allprosandconstogether, it has been practically proved beyond doubt to every rowing man for more than a decade that the slide gains much more than it sacrifices. Even bad sliding secures sufficient advantage to beat fixed-seat rowing (ceteris paribus), and good sliding completely distances fixed-seat performances. It is often remarked that the ‘times’ performed by sliding-seat crews are not glaringly superior to those of fixed-seat annals. This is correct. Nevertheless the balance is clearly in favour of sliding performances. The actual difference is much greater than times happen to disclose; it is somewhat fallacious to draw deductions from averages of recorded times, unless the individual condition of wind and weather, and of close or hollow races, be also chronicled for each year. Onp. 106 record is given of the actual gain attained by Pembroke College crew within ten days of their essaying the use of slides. It may be added that Kingston, who adopted slides about the same day, displayed much about the same increase of speed, as shown by clocking and by comparing their times with those of other crews before and after their adoption of slides.
Another matter throws light on the question, and that is the records of practice times—which are, on the whole, more trustworthy to prove an average than race times. Races have to start at fixed hours, irrespective of weather, whereas practice can select smooth days for trials. The records of sliding trials—over Henley courses and tideway—when wind and water have been favourable, show a much greater advance over similar practice trials of fixed-seat crews than is disclosed by the racing times of sliders. The writer believes that he is not far wrong in estimating the difference between sliding and fixed seats, in an eight or four, over the Henley course at 15 secs. (rough), and at something well over half a minute over the Putney course. Scullers gain more by slides than oarsmen, because they can work square throughout to the stretcher, whereas the oarsman’s handle tends to place the strain at different angles to his body as the stroke progresses.
Not much importance need be attached to the fact that the first University race rowed on slides eclipsed all its predecessors (and successors) for time.[8]It is well known that a gig eight with fixed seats on a good flood could do much faster time than a racing and sliding ship on a neap. The 1873 race hit off a one-o’clock tide and fair weather; and it would equally have surpassed all or most predecessors if the crews had not used slides. But still it was fortuitous that the first race of this class in the U.B.C.’s series should thus indicate the novelty by time record.
[8]SeeTables.
[8]SeeTables.
What is more striking is the ease with which times of about twenty minutes or under are now repeatedly accomplished, and by moderate crews, on moderate tides, and often with breezesunfavourable. Till slides came in twenty minutes had only once been beaten, and that was by the Oxford crew of 1857 in practice (19 min. 53 sec.); and as Mr. T. Egan, at that date editor of aquatics in ‘Bell’s Life,’ then recorded in that journal, the oldest waterman could hardly recall such springs as foamed through Putney arches that week, and especially upon that day of trial.
First part of strokePRACTISING STROKE (1).
PRACTISING STROKE (1).
Second part of strokePRACTISING STROKE (2).
PRACTISING STROKE (2).
Third part of strokePRACTISING STROKE (3).
PRACTISING STROKE (3).
Fourth part of strokePRACTISING STROKE (4).
PRACTISING STROKE (4).
In 1871 Goldie’s (third) crew were supposed to do wonderful time (20 min. 11 sec.), on a good spring and smooth day. It sufficed to make them hot favourites. In these days a sliding crew that could not beat 19 min. 40 sec. on a smooth spring tide would be reckoned to have a bad chance of success.
The value of slides is therefore beyond dispute, but the oarsman should realise that good sliding distances bad sliding quite as far as bad sliding can beat fixed seats.
Hence the importance of using the slide to the best advantage. To realise what he has to do, let a man test separately his two forces which he has presently to combine. Let him row an ordinary fixed-seat stroke: this shows him the power of his swing; then let him sit upright, holding his oar, and, having slid up forward, kick back with rigid back and arms. He will feel that he grips the water even more forcibly for the instant by the second than by the former process. The fallacy of bad sliders is to be content with this gain of power in the action last named, and to substitute slide for swing (the arms eventually rowing the stroke home in either case). The problem which an oarsman has to solve is tocombinethe two actions.
In order to do this, he should realise an important fact, viz. that the body cannot work effectually unless it receives support from the extensor muscles of the legs. Therefore, if he slides before he swings, or if he completes his slide before he completes his swing, any swing which he attempts after the slide is played out is practically powerless. Also, if the swing is thus rendered helpless, so also is the finish of the stroke with the arms, for these depend upon the body for support, and the body cannot supply them with this support unless the legs in their turn are doing their duty to the body.
Bearing this amount of theory in mind, the oarsman should put it into practice thus. He should get forward (and immerse his blade, as on a fixed seat). Then, at the moment he touches the water, he should bring his body to bear upon the handle, just as if he were for the instant rowing on a fixed seat; his legs should be rigid, though bent, at the instant of catch. (SeeNo. 1, p. 110.) So soon as the catch has been applied, the oar-handle begins to come in to the operator. Now comes a bit of watermanship and management of the limbs which require special attention, and which few oarsmen, even in these days of improved sliding, carry out to exact perfection. The kneeshave been elevated by the slide (if it is anything over 4 inches) to a height over which the oar-handle cannot pass without being elevated in its turn. Therefore, having once made his catch with rigid knees, the pupil should then begin to slide, contemporaneously with his swing, for a small distance, until he has brought his knees to such a level that the oar-loom can pass over them (No. 2, p. 110). He should during this period of the stroke slide only just so much as is required in order to bring his knees to the necessary height before the oar reaches them. By the time that the oar comes over them he will be about the perpendicular (No. 3, p. 111). Now comes that part of the stroke which, on a slide, is the most effective. The body should from this point swing well back, much further so than would be orthodox upon a fixed seat; all the time that the body is thus swinging back the legs should be extending, and the pace of extension should be regulated according to the length of slide. In any case the slide and swing should terminate contemporaneously (No. 4, p. 111). The arms, as in fixed-seat rowing, should contract and row the stroke home while the body is still swinging back. They should not begin to bend until the trunk has well passed the perpendicular.
The oarsman must bear in mind that the moment for finishing his slide should be regulated, not by the length of theslide, but bythe length of his swing, and the latter should go well back until his body is at an angle of about thirty degrees beyond the perpendicular. Suppose he has a long slide, say of 10 inches or more, and he decides, either from fatigue or because he need not fully extend himself, to use only part of his slide; or suppose he is changed from a boat fitted with 11-inch slides to one with 9-inch ditto, he must not, when using the shorter slide, allow his legs to extend as rapidly as they did when they had a longer distance to cover. If he fails to observe this he will ‘hurry’ his slide, and will bring it to an end before the swing is completed, thus rendering the latter part of the swing helpless for want of due leg-support. If slide and swing are not arranged contemporaneously, it is far betterthat a balance of slide should remain to be run out after the swing has finished thanvice versâ. The legs can always push, and so continue the stroke, even if the body is rigid; but the body cannot conversely do anything effective for the stroke when once the legs have run their course.
The recovery on a sliding seat is not quite the counterpart of that on a fixed seat. On the fixed seat the recovery should be the converse of the stroke: i.e. the arms, which came in latest, while the body was still swinging back, should shoot out first, while the body is beginning its return swing; and just as the first part of the stroke was performed with straight arms and swinging body, so the last part of the recovery should disclose a similar pose of arms and body. But upon a slide there is not exactly such a transposition on the recovery of the motions which are correct for the stroke. The hands play the same part as before; they cannot well be too lively off the chest and in extension, because the knees require more clearing on slides, and the sooner the hands are on the safe side of them the less chance is there of fouling the water on the return of the blade. But, as regards the relations between slide and swing, these shouldnotbear the same relation conversely which they did to each other during the stroke. The pupil was enjoined not to let his slide run ahead of his swing while rowing the stroke through; but on the recovery he may, and should, let his slide get well ahead, and be completed before the body has attained its full reach forward. The body should notwaitfor the swing to do its duty first, but it should begin at once to recover, though more leisurely than the legs. The reasons for this are:—
1. The pace of the slide lends impetus to the trunk, and eases the labour of the forward swing; it transfers some of the exertion of recovering the trunk from the abdominal muscles, which are weak, to the flexors of legs and loins, which are much more powerful, and are better able to stand the strain.
2. The body needs some purchase upon which to depend for its recovery, and the legs can aid it in this respect muchmore effectually when bent than when rigid. Therefore, since staying power is greatly affected by the amount of exertion involved in recovery (as explained in previous pages), the oarsman will last longer in proportion as he thus omits the recovery of his trunk, by accelerating his slide on the return.
Many good oarsmen slide until the knees are quite straight. In the writer’s opinion, this is waste of power: the knees should neverquitestraighten; the recovery is, for anatomical reasons, much stronger if the joint is slightly bent when the reversal of the machinery commences (No. 4, p. 111). The extra half-inch of kick gained by quite straightening the knees hardly compensates for the extra strain of recovery; also leg-work to the last fraction of a second of swing is better preserved by this retention of a slight bend, and an open chest and clean finish are thereby better attained. Engineers, who know what is meant by a ‘dead point’ in machinery, will at once grasp the reason for not allowing the legs to shoot quite straight.
When a crew are being coached upon slides, it is of great importance to get the slide simultaneous, and as nearly as possible equal. A long-legged man, sculling, may use a much longer slide than a short man. But in an eight, if the long man fits his stretcher as if for sculling, he will be doing more than his share, and may be unable to shoot so long a slide through in the required time, except by dint of ‘hurrying’ it; and, if he does this latter, the result is to cripple his swing, as shownsupra. There must be a certain amount of give-and-take in arranging slides in an eight or four oar. That length of slide is best which all the crew can work simultaneously and effectively, preserving uniformity of swing and slide.
When tiros are being taught their first lesson in sliding, they should be placed on very short slides, say 3 inches at most. The centre of the slide only should be used. The runners should be blocked fore and aft, so that when the slide stands half way (11⁄2inch from foremost block), the distance from the seat to the stretcher should be just as much as the man would require if he were on a fixed seat.
Young hands are less likely to make their stroke all slide and no swing if they have at first only such length of slide as above indicated. When the slide of 3 inches has been mastered, it may be lengthened, inch by inch. In thus lengthening the slide, it is best to add, at first, more to the forward part of the slide than to the back part, i.e. say, for a 4-inch slide, 21⁄2inches before and 11⁄2inch behind, the point of seat for fixed-seat work, to the same stretcher. This arrangement prevents the pupil from lacking leg-support at the end of his swing, and teaches him to feel his legs well against the stretcher till the hands have come home to the chest. When 4 inches have been mastered, add another inch forward and about half an inch back, and so on. In time the beginner will reach the full range of his slide forward, while yet he is ‘blocked’ from using the full distance back. When he becomes proficient in this pose, his slide back can be increased by degrees until he attains a full slide. The great thing is to induce him from the first to combine his slide with his swing, and not to substitute the former for the latter.
When slides first came in shocking form was seen upon them, as previously stated. This was a venial result of oarsmen being driven—by emulation to win prizes in races immediately impending—to attempt to run before they had learnt to walk, so to speak. The year 1873 saw worse form among amateurs than the writer can recall in any season. In 1874 matters began to mend. The two University strokes of that year, Messrs. Rhodes and Way, had each been at pains to improve his style since he had last been seen in public at Henley. Each seemed to realise that he had been on a wrong tack, and set to work to alter his style radically. These same gentlemen were strokes of their respective U.B.C.’s in 1875, and the improvement was still more palpable. The Oxonian had an exceptionally fine lot of men behind him; the Cantab had two or three weak men in the bows who did not do justice to him. But none the less, when these crews performed at Putney, old-fashioned critics, who had been till then prejudiced against the newmachinery, as being destructive to form, were fain to admit that after all, when properly managed, slides could produce as good form of body and shoulders as in the best of the old days. The Leander crew which won the G.C.C. at Henley in that year showed admirable sliding form. It was stroked by Mr. Goldie, who had rowed all his University races on a fixed seat. When he first took to a slide (for sculling) he fell into the same error as many other amateurs, almost entirely substituting slide for swing. But for this oversight he might have won both Diamond and Wingfield sculls. He soon saw his error, like Messrs. Rhodes and Way, and when he stroked Leander in 1875 no one could have recognised him as the same man who had been contesting the Diamonds in 1872. These three fuglemen strokes did much to elevate the standard of sliding among amateurs; it was chiefly through their examples, crowned with success, that the earlier samples of sliding oarsmanship became better realised. Professionals remained blind in their own conceit, as is shown inanother chapter, but from this date amateur oarsmanship completely gave the go-by to professional exhibitions of skill and science in aquatics.