CHAPTER XII.

[9]The first keelless eight that won a University match.

These boats are selected because each in its turn won some reputation, and also because they exemplify the builds of different constructors.

No. 1 was always highly esteemed by those who rowed in her.

No. 2 carried Eton at Henley Regatta from 1863 to 1870 or 1871.

No 3 was eulogised by Mr. T. Egan in ‘Bell’s Life,’ on the occasion of herdébutin the above-mentioned school matchv.Eton. She retained a high reputation for several seasons, was once specially borrowed by Corpus (Oxon) during the summer eights, and was said by that crew to be a vast improvement on their own ship.

No 4 carried Oxford from 1878 to 1882 inclusive, losing only the match in 1879, in which year the crew and not the boat were to blame.

No. 5, after one or two trials, was in 1883 found to be faster than No. 4 (which was then getting old!), and in her the Oxonians won a rather unexpected victory; odds of 3 to 1 being laid against them.

In addition to these builds, the dimensions recorded by the well-known authority ‘Argonaut,’ in his standard work on ‘Boat Racing,’ are here given. That writer does not commit himself to saying that they are thebest, but simply states that they arethe ‘average dimensions’ of modern racing boats. Unfortunately, the writer cannot trace the dimensions of the celebrated ‘Chester’ boat, Mat Taylor’s first keellesschef-d’œuvre, but he recollects that her length was only 54 feet; and her stretchers were built into her and were fixed.

The cost of a racing eight, with all fittings, is about 55l.Some builders will build at as low a price as 50l., especially for a crack crew, or for an important race, because the notoriety of the vessel, if successful, naturally acts as an advertisement. A four-oar costs 35l.to 40l.; a pair-oar 20l.to 25l.; and a sculling boat 12l.We have known some builders ask 15l.for a sculling boat. On the whole, racing boats are from eight to ten per cent. cheaper nowadays than they were a quarter of a century ago. Although the introduction of sliding seats necessarily adds to the expense of making them, competition seems to have brought down the prices somewhat.

’Argonaut’s’ Dimensions of Modern Boats.

[10]Breadth on boat, 111⁄4inches.

[11]Measured from front edge of slide to plane of thowl.

The writer thinks, and believes that ‘Argonaut’ would agree with him, that these recorded average dimensions couldbe improved upon in divers respects, e.g. as to oars, for sliding seats the length ‘inboard’ should not be less than 3 ft. 71⁄2in. to 3 ft. 8 in.; otherwise, when the oarsman swings back there is not sufficient length of handle to enable his outside hand to finish square to his chest, and with the elbow well past the side. The sliding-seat oar requires to be at least 10 inches longer inboard than the fixed-seat oar, for the above reason; and in order to counterpoise this extra leverage, it is customary to use blades an inch wider for slides than for fixed seats, viz. 6 inches wide at the greatest breadth, instead of 5 inches as of old.

Again, as to distance of the plane of the thowl perpendicularly from that of the front of the slide when full forward. This should not be less than 61⁄2inches, in the writer’s opinion, even with a 16-inch slide. If the oarsman slides nearer than the above to his work, he does not gain; for much of his force is thus expended in jamming the oar back against the rowlock, rather than in propelling the boat. He ‘feels’ extra resistance, and may accordingly delude himself that he is doing more work, if the slides close up; but in reality he is wasting his powers.

In modern racing boats, the men slide too close to their work; and if any builder will have the courage to set his men further aft than is the custom (say about 61⁄2to 7 inches), he will find his ship travel all the faster.

As to shapes of hull: the earliest Mat Taylor boats have never been surpassed, in the writer’s opinion, and were much faster than the modern builds. The peculiarity of Mat Taylor’s build was that he put his greatest beam well forward, about No. 3’s middle or seat. Such boats held more ‘way’ than more modern craft, which are fullest amidships.

Builders of the present day construct as if the only problem which they had to solve was to force a hole through the water in front of the boat. This is not all that is necessary in order to get a boat to travel well. A racing boat leaves a vacuum behind her, and until that is filled she is sucked back into that vacuum.

A boat built like the half of a split porcupine’s quill could enter the water with the least resistance, but would leave it with the greatest; in fact, she would not travel at all, because her bluff stern would create a sudden vacuum behind her, which would retard her progress. This is areductio ad absurdum, but it shows the effect of having the greatest beam too far aft. The problem to be solved in designing the lines of a boat is so to arrange her entry into the water, that what she displaces in front may with greatest ease flow aft to fill the vacuum aft which she leaves as she progresses. Otherwise she pushes a heavy wave in front of her, and drags another behind her. If anyone will watch the bank as a racing eight passes, noting the level of the water at a rathole, he will see the level of the stream first rise as the boat comes nearly abreast of his point of observation. Then, as she passes, the water will sink, and after she has passed it will rise again higher than before she neared the spot.

The first rise is caused by the boat pushing a wave in front of her: the following depression is caused by the vacuum which she is leaving behind her, and the final rise by the wave which runs behind her to fill her vacuum. Obviously, the less water the vessel moves the easier she travels. If by any designing the wave pushed in front could be induced to run more or less back to the stern, then the second (following) wave would be more or less reduced in bulk, and the labour would be proportionately lighter.

The finer the lines taper aft, the easier the front wave displaced finds its way to the vacuum aft.Per contra, the more bluff the midship and stern sections, the greater the difficulty in filling the vacuum aft.

Builders hamper themselves by adhering to a red-tape idea that all oarsmen in a boat should be seated at equal distances from each other. So long as designers adhere to this, they require a good deal of beam aft, if Nos. 6, 7 and stroke are of anything like average size. Of course, there must be a minimum of space for each man to reach out in; but there is noreason why in some of the seats the space should not exceed this minimum, e.g. to set the first four men at the minimum, and then to place No. 5 and extra inch past No. 4 and so on, with perhaps stroke and 7 11⁄2inches further apart than the forward men, would enable the builder to attain a greater longitudinal displacement at the sternmost part of the boat than he would otherwise require to carry his men. In lieu of this gain, he can then reduce his beam and depth aft, and so make his lines taper more to the stern.

Mat Taylor built on this principle. Detractors used to laugh sometimes to see him chalk off his seats, and say, ‘A rowlock here—a seat there.’ The fact was, Mat Taylor placed his men, man for man, over the section of vessel built to carry them, allowing the minimum distance for reach in all cases, but by no means tying himself down to that distance where in his opinion the boat required elongating aft. They said he built by rule of thumb; so, perhaps, he did, but his builds have never been surpassed. Modern eights travel faster than of old, thanks to sliding seats and good oarsmanship, but if some of the old lost lines could be now reproduced, the speedy crews of modern days would be speedier still.

We offer one more illustration to show the effect of having too sudden a termination to a boat aft of her greatest beam, or of a certain amount of beam. Let anyone construct two models of racing boat hulls; probably he will not succeed in making two of equal speed, but such as they are he can handicap the speedier in his experiment. Let him place the two models to race, each towed by a line carried over a pulley, with a weight at the end of the line. The weights which tow the two models can be adjusted till the two run dead heats.

Then cut off the stern of one of the models, and bulkhead her, say about coxswain’s seat, and let them race once more with the forces which previously produced a dead heat. The model with a docked stern will have become the smaller vessel, and will now weigh less. Nevertheless, she will become decidedly slower than she was before, and will be beaten by her late duplicate.

In order to do justice to this experiment, the weights should tow at a pace equivalent to about four miles or more an hour. It will then be seen that this docked model leaves a whirlpool behind her stern, which is retarding her. This experiment of course exaggerates the principle of full afterlines, and their evil, but it may none the less serve to illustrate the importance of a finer run aft from a point further forward than amidships.En passant, the boat built by Salter of Oxford for the O.U.B.C. in 1865 may be mentioned; her dimensions are not to be traced, but she was specially designed to carry the heaviest man (E. F. Henley) at bow. She was certainly never surpassed by any other boat which Salter built. She won in 1865. In 1866 a heavier crew were in training, and the 1865 boat was supposed to be too small. She was not tried at all at Oxford with the crew. A new boat was built, this time to carry E. F. Henley at 5. When the crew reached Putney the writer felt dissatisfied with the movement of the new boat, and persuaded the crew to try the old one, even though she would be rather too small for them. They sent for her, and launched for a trial paddle the Monday before the race; so soon as they had rowed a dozen strokes in her they stopped, and declared she was the only light boat they had felt that season. They rowed the race in her, and won, and never took the trouble to set foot again in the new and rejected boat.

This victorious boat was then bought by the Oxford Etonians. They won the Grand Challenge of 1866 and 1867 in her, took her to Paris, and there won the eight-oared race at the International Regatta. She was sold and left behind in Paris. The writer suspects that her undeniable speed was mainly owing to the fact that Salter designed some extra displacement at No. 3, in order to carry E. F. Henley at that seat.

Romance on the river‘POETRY.’

‘POETRY.’

That ‘condition’ tells in all contests, whether in brain labours such as chess matches or in athletics, is known to children in the schoolroom.

Training is therégimeby means of which condition is attained. Its dogmas are of two orders: (1) Those which relate to exercise, (2) those which refer to diet. Diet of itself does not train a man for rowing or any other kind of athletics. What trains is hard work; proper diet keeps the subject up to that work.

The effect of a course of training is twofold. It developsthose muscles which are in use for the exercise in question, and it also prepares the internal organs of heart and lungs for the extra strain which will be put upon them during the contest. All muscles tend to develop under exercise, and to dwindle under inaction. The right shoulder and arm of a nail-maker are often out of all proportion to the left; the fingers of a pianist develop activity with practice, or lose it if the instrument be discontinued.

Training is a thorough science, and it is much better understood in these days than when the writer was in active work; and again, the trainers of his day were in their turn far ahead of those of the early years of amateur oarsmanship. From the earliest recorded days of athletic contests, there seems to have been much faith pinned to beefsteaks. When Socrates rebukes Thrasymachus, in the opening pages of Plato’s ‘Republic,’ he speaks of beefsteaks as being the chief subject of interest to Polydamos, who seems to have been a champion of the P.R. of Athens of those days. The beefsteak retains its prestige to the present day, but it is not thene plus ultrawhich it was in 1830.

The earliest amateur crews seem to have rowed in many instances without undergoing a course of training and of reduction of fat. But when important matches began to be made, the value of condition was appreciated. Prizefighters had then practical training longer than any other branch of athletics, and it was by no means uncommon for watermen, when matched by their patrons, to be placed under the supervision of some mentor from the P.R. as regards their diet and exercise. But before long watermen began to take care of themselves in this respect. Their system of training did not differ materially from that in vogue with the P.R. It consisted of hard work in thick clothing, early during the course of preparation, to reduce weight; and a good deal of pedestrian exercise formed part of the day’s programme; a material result of the association of the P.R. system of preparation. The diet was less varied and liberal than in these days, but abstinencefrom fluid to as great an extent as possible was from the outset recognised as all-important for reducing bulk and clearing the wind.

A prizefighter or waterman used to commence his training with a liberal dose of physic. The idea seems to have a stable origin, analogous to the principle of physic balls for a hunter on being taken up from grass. The system was not amiss for men of mature years, who had probably been leading a life of self-indulgence since the time when they had last been in training. But when University crews began to put themselves under the care of professional trainers, those worthies used to treat these half-grown lads as they would some gin-sodden senior of forty, and would physic their insides before they set them to work. They would try to sweat them down to fiddle-strings, and were not happy unless they could show considerable reduction of weight in the scale, even with a lad who had not attained his full growth. Still, though many a young athlete naturally went amiss under this severe handling, there is no doubt that these professional trainers used to turn out their charges in very fine condition, on the average.

No trainer of horses would work a two-year-old on the same system that he would an aged horse; and the error of these old professional trainers lay in their not realising the difference in age between University men and the ordinary classes of professional athletes. In time University men began to think and to act for themselves in the matter of training. When college eights first began to row against each other, there were only three or four clubs which manned eights; and these eights now and then were filled up with a waterman or two. (In these days few college crews would take an Oxford waterman as a gift—quâhis oarsmanship!) These crews, when they began to adopt training, employed watermen as mentors. Before long there were more eights than watermen, and some crews could not obtain this assistance. The result was, a rule against employing professional tuition within a certain date of the race. This regulation threw University men upon theirown resources, and before long they came to the conclusion that good amateur coaching and training was more effective than that of professionals. Mr. F. Menzies, the late Mr. G. Hughes, and the Rev. A. Shadwell, had much to do in converting the O.U.B.C. to these wholesome doctrines. From that time amateurs of all rowing clubs have very much depended on themselves and theirconfrèresfor tuition in oarsmanship and training.

The usualrégimeof amateur training is now very much to the following effect.

Réveille at 6.30 or 7a.m.—Generally a brief morning walk; and if so, the ‘tub’ is usually postponed until the return from the walk. If it is summer, and there are swimming facilities, a header or two does no harm, but men should not be allowed to strike out hard in swimming, when under hard rowing rules. For some reason, which medical science can better explain, there seems to be a risk of straining the suspensory or some other ligaments, when they are suddenly relaxed in water, and then extended by a jerk. (This refers to arms that have lately been bearing the strain of rowing.) Also, the soakage in water for any length of time tends to relax the whole of the muscular system. Whether tub or swim be the order of the morning, the skin should be well rubbed down with rough towels after the immersion. In old days there used to be afurorefor running before breakfast. Many young men find their stomachs and appetites upset by hard work on an empty stomach, more especially in sultry weather. The Oxford U.B.C. eight at Henley in 1857 and 1859 used to go for a run up Remenham Hill before breakfast, and this within two or three days of the regatta. Such a system would now be tabooed as unsound.

Breakfast consists of grilled chops or steaks; cold meat may be allowed if a man prefers it. If possible, it is well to let a roast joint cooluncut, to supply cold meat for a crew. The gravy is thus retained in the meat.

Bread should be one day old; toast is better than bread. Many crews allow butter, but as a rule a man is better withoutit. It adds a trifle to adipose deposit, and does not do any special service towards strengthening his tissues or purifying his blood.

Some green meat at breakfast is a good thing. Watercress for choice—next best are small salad and lettuce (plain).

Tea is the recognised beverage; two cups are ample for a man. If he can dispense with sugar it will save him some ounces of fat, if he is at all of a flesh-forming habit of body. A boiled egg is often allowed, to wind up the repast.

Crew weighingGOING TO SCALE.

GOING TO SCALE.

Luncheon depends, as to its substance, very much upon the time of year and the hours of exercise. If the work can be done in two sections, forenoon and afternoon, all the better. In hot summer weather it may be too sultry to take men out between breakfast and the mid-day meal. Luncheon now usually consists of cold meat, to a reasonable amount, stale bread, green meat, and a glass of ale. In the days when the writer was at Oxford, the rule of the O.U.B.C. was to allow no meat at luncheon (only bread, butter, and watercress). Thiswas a mistake; young men, daily wasting a large amount of tissue under hard work, had a natural craving for substantial food to supply the hiatus in the system. By being docked of it at luncheon, they gorged all the more at breakfast and dinner, where there was no limit as to quantity (of solids) to be consumed. They would have done better had their supply of animal food been divided into three instead of two daily allowances. They used to be allowed one slice of cold meat during their nine days’ stay at Putney; it would have been well to have allowed this all through training.

Dinner consists mainly of roast beef or mutton, or choice of both. It is the custom to allow ‘luxuries’ of some sort every other day, e.g. fish one day, and a course of roast poultry (chicken) on another. ‘Pudding’ is sometimes allowed daily, sometimes it only appears in its turn with ‘luxuries.’ It generally consists of stewed fruit, with plain boiled rice, or else calves’-foot jelly. A crust, or biscuit, with a little butter and some watercress or lettuce, make a final course before the cloth is cleared.

Drink is ale, for a standard; light claret, with water, is nowadays allowed for choice, and no harm in it. A pint is the normal measure; sometimes an extra half-pint may be conceded on thirsty days.

An orange and biscuit for dessert usually follow. In the writer’s days every man had two glasses of port wine. He thinks this was perhaps more than was required (as regards alcohol); one glass may suffice, but there may be no reason against the second wineglass being conceded, with water substituted, if the patient is really dry. Claret also may take the place of port after dinner. Fashions change; in the writer’s active days, claret would have been scorned as un-English for athletes.

Such is the usual nature of training diet; of the exercise of the day, more anon. There does not seem to be much fault to find with therégimeabove sketched; in fact, the proof of soundness of the diet may be seen in the good condition usually displayed by those who adopt it.

All the same, the writer, when he has trained crews, has slightly modified the above in a few details. He has allowed (a little) fish or poultry daily, as an extra course, and for the same reason has always endeavoured to have both beef and mutton on the table. He believes that change of dish aids appetite, so long as the varieties of food do not clash in digestion. Men become tired with a monotony of food, however wholesome. Puddings the writer does not think much of, provided that other varieties of dish can be obtained. A certain amount of vegetable food is necessary to blend with the animal food, else boils are likely to break out; but green vegetables such as are in season are far better than puddings for this purpose. Salad, dailywith the joint, will do good. It is unusual to see it, that is all. The salad should not be dressed. Lettuce, endive, watercress, smallcress, beetroot, and some minced spring onions to flavour the whole, make a passable dish, which a hungry athlete will much relish. Asparagus, spinach, and French beans may be supplied when obtainable. Green peas are not so good, and broad beans worse. The tops of young nettles, when emerald green, make a capital dish, like spinach, rather more tasty than the latter vegetable. Such nettles can only be picked when they first shoot; old nettles are as bad as flowered asparagus.

If a crew train in the fruit season, fruit to a small amount will not harm them, as a finale to either breakfast or dinner. But the fruit should beveryfresh, not bruised nor decomposed; strawberries, gooseberries, grapes, peaches, nectarines, apricots (say one of the last three, or a dozen of the smaller fruits, for a man’s allowance), all are admissible. Not so melons, nor pines—so medical friends assert.

In hot summer weather it is as well to dine about 2p.m., to row in the cool of the evening, towards 7p.m., and to sup about 8.30 or 9p.m.It is a mistake to assume that because a regatta will come off midday, therefore those who train for it should accustom themselves to a burning sun for practice. With all due deference to Herodotus (who avers that theskeleton skulls of quondam combatant Persians and Egyptians could be known apart on the battle-field, because the turban-clad heads of Persians produced soft skulls which crumbled to a kick, while the sun-baked heads of Egyptians were hard as bricks), we do not believe in this sort of acclimatisation. If men have to be trained to row a midnight race, they would be best prepared for it by working at their ordinary daylight hours, not by turning night into day for weeks beforehand. On the same principle it would seem to be a mistake to expose oarsmen in practice to excessive heat to which they have not been accustomed, solely because they are likely eventually to row their race under a similar sun. In really oppressive weather at Henley the writer and his crews used to dine about 2p.m.as aforesaid, finish supper at 9 or 9.30, and go to bed two hours later. They rose proportionately later next day, taking a good nine hours in bed before they turned out. So far as their records read, those crews do not seem on the whole to have suffered in condition by this system of training.

Many men are parched with thirst at night. The heat of the stomach, rather overladen with food, tends to this. The waste of the system has been abnormal during the day; the appetite, i.e. instinct to replenish the waste, has also been abnormal, and yet the capacity of the stomach is only normal. Hence the stomach finds it hard work to keep pace with the demands upon it. Next morning these men feel ‘coppered,’ as if they had drunk too much overnight, and yet it is needless to say they have not in any way exceeded the moderate scale of alcohol already propounded above as being customary.

The best preventive of this tendency to fevered mouths is a cup of ‘water gruel,’ or even a small slop-basin of it, the last thing before bedtime. It should not contain any milk; millet seed and oatmeal grits are best for its composition. The consumption of this light supper should becompulsory, whether it suits palates or not. The effect of it is very striking; it seems to soothe and promote digestion, and to allay thirst more than three times its amount of water would do. Some few mencannot, or profess to be unable to, stomach this gruel. The writer has had to deal with one or two such in his time. He had his doubts whether their stomach or their whims were to blame; but in such cases he gave way, and allowed a cup of chocolate instead—without milk. (Milk blends badly with meat and wine at the end of a hard day.) Chocolate is rather more fattening than gruel, otherwise it answers the same purpose, of checking any disposition to ‘coppers.’

It has been a time-honoured maxim with all trainers, that it is the fluids which lay on fat and which spoil the wind. Accordingly, reduction in the consumption of fluid has always been one of the first principles of training, and it is a sound one so long as it is not carried to excess. It is not at the outset of training that thirst so oppresses the patient, but at the end of the first week and afterwards, especially when temperature rises and days are sultry. Vinegar over greens at dinner tends to allay thirst; the use of pepper rather promotes it. In time the oarsman begins to accustom himself somewhat to his diminished allowance of fluid, and he learns to economise it during his meals, to wash down his solids.

A coach should be reasonably firm in resisting unnecessary petitions for extra fluid, but he must exercise discretion, and need not be always obdurate. On this subject the writer reproduces his opinion as expressed in ‘Oars and Sculls’ in 1873:—

The tendency to ‘coppers’ in training is no proof of insobriety. The whole system of training is unnatural to the body. It is an excess of nature. Regular exercise and plain food are not in themselves unnatural, but the amount of each taken by the subject in training is what is unnatural. The wear and tear of tissue is more than would go on at ordinary times, and consequently the body requires more commissariat than usual to replenish the system. The stomach has all its work cut out to supply the commissariat, and leave the tendency to indigestion and heat in the stomach. A cup of gruel seldom fails to set this to rights, and a glass of water besides may also be allowed if the coach is satisfied that a complaint of thirst is genuine. There is no greater folly than stinting a man in his liquid. He should not be allowed to blow himself outwith drink, taking up the room of good solid food; but to go to the other extreme, and to spoil his appetite for want of an extra half-pint at dinner, or a glass of water at bedtime, is a relic of barbarism. The appetite is generally greatest about the end of the first week of training. By that time the frame has got sufficiently into trim to stand long spells of work at not too rapid a pace. The stomach has begun to accustom itself to the extra demands put upon it, and as at this time the daily waste and loss of flesh is greater than later on, when there is less flesh to lose, so the natural craving to replenish the waste of the day is greater than at a later period. At this time the thirst is great, and though drinking out of hours should be forbidden, yet the appetite should not, for reasons previously stated, be suffered to grow stale for want of sufficient liquid at meal times in proportion to the solids consumed.

Such views would have been reckoned scandalously heretical twenty-five or more years ago, but the writer feels that he is unorthodox in good company, and is glad to find Mr. E. D. Brickwood, in his treatise on ‘Boat-racing,’ 1875, laying down his own experiences on the same subject to just the same effect. Mr. Brickwood’s remarks on the subject of ‘thirst’ (as per his index) may be studied with advantage by modern trainers. He says (page 201):—

As hunger is the warning voice of nature telling us that our bodies are in need of a fresh supply of food, so thirst is the same voice warning us that a fresh supply of liquid is required. Thirst, then, being, like hunger, a natural demand, may safely be gratified, and with water in preference to any other fluid. The prohibition often put upon the use of water or fluid in training may often be carried too far. To limit a man to a pint or two of liquid per day, when his system is throwing off three or four times that quantity through the medium of the ordinary secretions, is as unreasonable as to keep him on half-rations. The general thirst experienced by the whole system, consequent upon great bodily exertion or extreme external heat, has but one means of cure—drink, in the simplest form attainable. Local thirst, usually limited to the mucous linings, of the mouth and throat, may be allayed by rinsing the mouth and gargling the throat, sucking the stone of stone fruit, or a pebble, by which to excite the glands in the affected part, or even by dipping the hands into cold water. Fruit is here of very littlebenefit, as the fluid passes at once to the stomach, and affords no relief to the parts affected; but after rinsing the mouth, small quantities may be swallowed slowly. The field for the selection of food to meet the waste of the body under any condition of physical exertions is by no means restricted. All that the exceptional requirements of training call for is to make a judicious selection; but, in recognising this principle, rowing men have formed a dietary composed almost wholly of restrictions the effect of which has been to produce a sameness in diet which has almost been as injurious in some cases as the entire absence of any laws would be in others.

It should be borne in mind that Mr. Brickwood’s field as an amateur lay principally in sculling, which entailed solitary training, unlike that of a member of an eight or four. He had therefore to train himself, and to trust to his own judgment when so doing, blending self-denial with discretion. He is, in the above quotation, apparently speaking of the principles under which he governed himself when training. That they were crowned with good success his record as an athlete shows, for he twice won the Diamond Sculls, and also held the Wingfield (amateur championship) in 1861. Such testimony therefore is the more valuable coming from a successful and self-trained sculler.

As regards sleep, the writer lays great stress upon obtaining a good amount of it. Even if a night is sultry, and sleep does not come easily, still the oarsman can gain something by mere physical repose, though his brain may now and then not obtain rest so speedily as he could wish. The adage ascribed to King George III. as to hours of sleep, ‘six for a man, seven for a woman, and eight for a fool,’ is unsound. He who is credited with having propounded it, showed in his later years that, either his brain had suffered from deficiency of rest, or that it never had been sufficiently brilliant to justify much attention being bestowed on his philosophy. Probably he never did a really hard day’s (still less a week’s) labour, of either brain or body, in his life. Had he done so, he would have found that not six, nor seven, and often not eight hours, are too much to enablethe wasted tissues of brain or body, or both, to recuperate. It is when in a state of repose that the blood, newly made from the latest meal, courses through the system and replenishes what has been wasted during the day. Recruits are never measured for the standard at the end of a day’s march, but next day—after a good rest. Cartilage, sinew, muscle, alike waste. The writer used, after racing the Henley course, perhaps thrice in an evening’s practice (twice in a four or eight and afterwards in a pair-oar or sculling boat, &c), to take a good nine hours’ sound sleep, and awoke all the better for it. Some men keep on growing to a comparatively late age in life; such men require more sleep, while thus increasing in size, than others who have earlier attained full bulk and maturity. As a rule, and regardless of what many other trainers may say to the contrary, the writer believes that the majority of men in training may sleep nine hours with advantage.

The period of training varies according to circumstances. A man of twenty-five and upwards, who has been lying by for months, it may be for a year or two, can do with three months of it. The first half should be less severe than the last. He can begin with steady work, to redevelop his muscles, and to reduce his bulk (if he is much over weight) by degrees. The last six weeks should be ‘strict’ in every sense. He can get into ‘hunting’ condition in the first six weeks, and progress to ‘racing’ condition in the succeeding six.

University crews train from five to six weeks. The men are young, and have, most of them, been in good exercise some time before strict training begins.

College crews cannot give much more than three weeks to train for the summer bumping races; tideway crews have been doing a certain amount of work for weeks before they go into strict training for Henley; this last stage usually lasts about four weeks.

It is often supposed that a man needs less training for a short than for a long course. This is a mistake. The longer he prepares himself, so long as he does not overdo himself, thebetter he will be. Long and gradual training is better than short and severe reductions. Over a long course, when an untrained man once finds nature fail him, more ground will be lost than over a short course:cela va sans dire: but that is no argument against being thoroughly fit for even a half-mile row. The shorter the course, the higher the pressure of pace, and the crew that cracks first for want of condition—loses (ceteris paribus).

Athletes of the running path will agree that it is as important to train a man thoroughly for a quarter-mile race as for a three-mile struggle. Pace kills, and it is condition which enables the athlete to endure the pace.

Rower refusing a smokeSMOKING IS FORBIDDEN.

SMOKING IS FORBIDDEN.

Smoking is, as every schoolboy knows, forbidden in training. However,pro formâ, the fact must be recorded that it is illicit. It spoils the freedom of the lungs, which should be as elastic as possible, in order to enable them to oxygenate properly the extra amount of blood which circulates under violent exertions.

Aperients at the commencement of training used to bederigueur. Young men of active habits hardly need them. Anyhow, no trainer should attempt to administer them on his own account; if he thinks the men need physic at the outset, let him call in a medical man to prescribe for them.

We have said that proper diet keeps an oarsman up to the work which is necessary to bring him into good condition. Having detailed therégimeof diet, and its appurtenances, such as sleep, we may now deal with the system of work itself.

One item of work we have incidentally dealt with, to wit, themorning walk; but it was necessary to handle this detail at that stage because it had a reference to the morning tub and morning meal.

The work which is set for a crew should be guided by the distance of time from the race. If possible, oarsmen should have their work lightened somewhat towards the close of training, and it is best to get over the heavy work, which is designed to reduce weight as well as to clear the wind, at a comparatively early stage of the training.

There is also another factor to be taken into calculation by the trainer, and that is whether, at the time when sharp work is necessary to produce condition, his crew are sufficiently advanced as oarsmen to justify him in setting them to perform that work at a fast stroke in the boat. Not all crews require to be worked upon the same system, irrespective of the question of stamina and health.

Suppose a crew are backward as oarsmen and also behindhand in condition. If such a crew are set to row a fast stroke in order to blow themselves and to accustom their vascular system to high pressure, their style may be damaged. If on the other hand they do no work except rowing at a slow stroke until within a few days of the race, they will come to the post short of condition. Such a crew should be kept at a slow stroke in the boat, in order to enable them to learn style, for a fortnight or so; but meantime the trainer should put them through somesharp work upon their legs. He should set them to run a mile or so after the day’s rowing. This will get off flesh, and will clear the wind, and meantime style can be studied in the boat. Long rows without an easy are a mistake for backward men who are also short of work. When the pupil gets blown at the end of a few minutes he relapses into his old faults, and makes his last state worse than the first.

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