Boat Types – The Pair

While undoubtedly one of the more demanding boat types, the pair deserves to get more use than it does at most clubs. It is an excellent learning environment for intermediate rowers, although having a change of kit ready is recommended for the first couple of outings.

The pair can be an unforgiving boat to row, requiring good crew co-ordination from the outset. Its main benefit as a coaching platform is that every move the rowers make is reflected immediately in the performance of the boat. Hand heights, timing, stroke length and quality of bladework all have immediate and very clear effects. If you are new to rowing a pair, just getting the boat well-balanced and moving smoothly will teach you a lot about what you are doing wrong and how well you need to do it to get it right. Getting it right is always a rewarding experience in rowing – it is particularly so in a pair. The benefit to the rower lies in taking the improved technique and performance gained in the pair back to larger crew boats where you can now be a better and more adaptable rower.

Note to coaches: A pair is likely to feel heavy to rowers used to fours and eights, so it is probably a good idea to lower the gearing on the blades. 116cm inboard is a good starting point, but don’t hesitate to give a more inboard leverage if the height / fitness / skill of the crew makes it necessary. It may also be a good idea to move the foot-stretchers further toward the bow than the rower is used to, in order to move more of the work behind the pin.

Boat Types – The Double Scull

The double scull (or just ‘double’) is the most popular crew boat at most rowing clubs. While it offers an easily accessible and reasonably forgiving platform for novice scullers, it is also a class of boat represented in competitions at every level from local regattas and ‘small boats’ head races to elite FISA and Olympic competitions.

The double is an ideal platform for one-on-one coaching, with the coach steering in the bow seat and the novice rower in the stroke seat. All club scullers from novice juniors to recreational members can make good use of doubles.

Technically the double is uncomplicated, responding predictably to the actions of the crew whether good or bad. It is slower off the catch than the quad and easy to steer with rudder or blades.

Coxed doubles are still made, but usually as ‘touring’ boats – broad beamed, stable, rowing boats rather than as racing shells or ‘fine’ boats. They are finding a new role in adaptive rowing, allowing disabled athletes to enjoy sculling a double under the guidance of a cox.

Boat Types – The Quad

The Quad is a sculling boat for four scullers with eight blades. For reasons of economy, most clubs will actually use a coxless four with sculling riggers rather than the lighter, purpose-built quad, as they then effectively get two boats for the price of one. Purpose built quads are less sturdy than fours as they are not subject to the asymmetric loads of sweep-oar rowing – so they can’t be rigged as fours.

A sculler actually has more spoon area in the water during the stroke than a rower with a sweep oar. As a result, quads have a more rapid acceleration off the catch than other boats – even when using the heavier coxless four shell. For the crew, this can present some challenges, as the rapid acceleration of the boat after the catch can result in a loss of pressure toward the finish if the crews hands don’t maintain the acceleration from the leg drive. From the coach’s point of view a quad crew are effectively rowing a two-part ‘legs-hands’ stroke – both of which need to be powerful but need to connect smoothly together. People who have learned to row before they learn to scull will probably feel slightly rushed during the power phase of the stroke as the hands and arms have to accelerate into the finish in a way that is unlike sweep oar technique. Feathering is different too, with both wrists dropping sharply as the blades leave the water at the finish, with the handles held lightly in the crooked fingers well above the palm.

While the sculler at bow is in charge of steering and usually has a foot-operated rudder control, he or she will usually recruit the rest of the crew to help with steering. A boat as fast as a quad often needs more steering than can be managed via the rudder alone and a little more right or left hand pressure from the whole crew is the safest way to navigate a busy or bendy river.

Coxed quads are used for junior (11 – 18) scullers at most clubs and offer an excellent training environment for coxes who aspire to bigger, senior boats. While not as lively as the coxless quad, the coxed quad is also an excellent coaching environment for junior scullers, able to accommodate mixed ability crews quite safely.

Boat Types – The Coxless Four

The first thing you notice when you start rowing a coxless four is its lightness and acceleration as compared to the coxed four. The second thing you notice is that no-one wants the bow seat, because bow has to do the steering. If you have a straight, uncrowded river to row on, this may not be a big issue, but for most of us, the need to keep checking over your shoulder that you have the right line and that there is no traffic in the way is an obstacle to getting the best out of an outing.  However, the coxless four is used in elite competitions and if you want to compete in a four at elite level you have to master this type.

Without a cox of course, the crew is also missing the cox’s contribution to their performance, so the crew have to cultivate their tactical awareness to a greater extent than in coxed boats. Luckily, the increased responsiveness of the coxless four means communication between the crew often needs no words.  You can feel even subtle changes in the performance of your crew through the sound and feel of the boat.

The coxless four is often the premier boat in clubs which don’t have the numbers for a regular eight. It will often be rigged as a quad for much of the time for the simple reason that the quad is easier to steer.

Boat Types – The Coxed Four

The coxed four is my favourite boat as a rower, although (probably because it is no longer used at the Olympics or FISA rowing competitions) it is less popular with more ambitious rowers.   It is more responsive than the eight, more forgiving than the pair and allows rowers to concentrate on rowing while they leave steering duties to the cox. Perhaps for this reason, the coxed four is in my view the best boat for coaching the technical aspects of sweep-oar rowing and the most satisfying to row with a good crew who can fine-tune its balance and handling characteristics.

The term ‘coxed four’ covers two very different configurations.  The original configuration has the cox sitting in the stern (as with an eight).  A later adaptation is the ‘bow-loader’ in which the cox lies down inside the bow section of the boat.  Both types have their advantages and disadvantages.

The cox seated at the stern of a four has a wider field of view and can see (and talk with) the crew, see their blades and other boats around and even behind them. On the downside, a stern-coxed boat creates more wind-resistance and has a higher centre of gravity than a bow-loader.

By lying the cox down in bows of the boat, the bow-loader addresses the two main disadvantages of the stern-loader.  The additional weight in the bows of the boat also lessens the tendency of the bows to pitch up as the crew move up the slide into frontstops.  The tradeoff – and it is a significant one – is that the cox in a bowloader has a very limited field of view.  He/she can’t see the crew and can’t see behind the boat. This makes coxing a bow-loader safely a far more demanding job than coxing a stern-loader and in my view a role only for experienced coxes if you have to share your river with other boats.  An experienced cox can tell how the crew are moving from the sound and ‘feel’ of the boat but this is a skill which novice coxes can take a while to acquire.

From the cox’s point of view, as for the crew, the four offers more opportunity for fine control than the eight and more opportunity to understand individual crew members and the effects they have on the boat.

Boat types – The Eight

The opportunity to row regularly in an eight is (sadly) an experience unavailable to some rowers who are members of smaller clubs. This is a shame, because the eight is both the fastest and the most forgiving of boats.  Whether you are a complete beginner or a rower with decades of experience, an eight can offer a wonderful rowing experience.

Being the biggest competition boat, an eight offers a great platform for coaching a group of beginners – the crew members alternating between ‘sitting the boat’ (blades flat on the water as stabilisers) and working on their rowing technique.  Graduating from rowing an eight in fours or sixes, to rowing ‘all eight’, is an important milestone for new rowers.  For experienced rowers the eight is both the ultimate ‘go faster’ boat  for the regatta season and the most comfortable option for ‘head’ racing on long, potentially rough stretches of water such as the Tideway (the tidal Thames in London).

Paradoxically, while it is a great beginners boat, an eight can also be a  greater challenge to experienced crews than a smaller boat.  While more forgiving of errors, it is also more difficult to ‘fine tune’ an eight and get it exactly right.  For this reason, many coaches prefer to coach experienced rowers in smaller, more responsive boats before bringing them together in an eight.

For coxes, an eight presents special challenges.  The sheer length of the boat can make it awkward to spin on a narrow river, while the distance between the cox and the rower at bow can be an obstacle to communication, even with a cox-box.  Coaching from the cox’s seat of an eight is  generally to be avoided in my view, as you simply cannot see enough of the bow rowers from the stern to coach them effectively.

In another article I will outline some elements of eights coaching which I find particularly useful, but if as a rower, you don’t get the opportunity to row an eight regularly, I’d encourage you to foster links with other clubs in your area  and try out a composite crew.  It will be worth it.

Coach or Teacher?

Coaching and teaching are closely related but NOT the same.  In my view, the main difference lies in the speed of the feedback the coach gets from the student / athlete as compared with the feedback the teacher gets.  In essence, the coach gets very rapid feedback (within seconds or minutes) to his or her coaching.  The student’s response can be seen and evaluated almost immediately and there can be several iterations of this loop during a coaching session.  A teacher by contrast, gets relatively little feedback immediately and may have to wait days or weeks for an essay or exam result to provide that feedback on the student’s progress.

This is one of the reasons I’m a coach and not a teacher.  The progress an athlete or crew can make in a single session is always very satisfying and motivational, for both the coach and crew.  By the same token, one tends not to spend too much time on techniques which do not work.

That said, I think coaches have much to learn from professional teachers, particularly in the positive support and reinforcement offered to students during the learning process.  This is very important when coaching juniors.  Young athletes sometimes lack confidence and can be quickly discouraged if they encounter difficulties.  A good coach will notice this and work with the athlete to resolve the issue or move on to another exercise which the athlete will find easier.

Safety

Safety tends not to be a topic of much interest to most rowers.  Most rowers have never been injured while rowing or involved in a serious accident.  Rowing is a safe sport and provided that rowers, coaches, their clubs and (in the UK) Regional Rowing Councils foster a culture of safe behaviour, it should remain that way.  For club rowers, that culture of safety means engaging with at least the following issues on every outing:

1. River conditions.  River levels and rates of flow can vary even on managed waterways.  When carrying out a risk assessment before any outing on a faster than usual river, the relevant question is not ‘Could we row on that river?’ but ‘If we had an accident on that river, how confident are we that we could recover our boat and crew safely?’.
2. Equipment checks.  Most equipment ‘failures’ are actually the result of inadequate inspection and testing before boating.  Discovering that a rudder isn’t working or having a swivel detach itself during an outing can be dangerous as well as inconvenient.
3. People.  An outing accompanied by a coach or just a bank rider is safer than an outing consisting of only rowers and a boat.  It is safer still if the bank rider has a throwline and a mobile phone.

It is very much worth reviewing British Rowing’s Row Safe Guide:

http://www.britishrowing.org/taking-part/staying-safe/rowsafe

The key message is that safety is not someone else’s problem.  It is the responsibility of every club member and every rower.

Training Drills and Exercises

Drills and exercises are how rowers spend most of their time on the water.  With or without a coach, most crews will want to do more than simply row up and down their river or lake during an outing.  There’s a simple reason for this – the crew who can row perfectly has not yet been born and drills and exercises are the main route to better rowing. There are at least two contrasting approaches to drills and exercises followed by crews and coaches.

The first, used by some coaches and most crews rowing without a coach, is to coach the boat as a whole. Emphasis is on boat performance rather than individual technique and the exercises are selected accordingly.

The second, and my personal preference, is to coach the individual rowers first and THEN coach the boat.

The first approach works well with experienced crews who can feel the small changes in the movement of the boat as adjustments are made, The second approach depends on having a pair of eyes outside the boat, either on a launch or the towpath.  It works because – apart from some subtle variations in style, modern rowing technique is clearly defined and very consistent.   It can be applied with crews of any standard but is essential when working  with beginners and novice rowers who are still learning to read boat responses. An experienced coach can watch a crew rowing and spot the elements of their stroke which are ‘out of line’.  As each of these elements are corrected boat performance improves and exercises are used to  reinforce the change in technique by exaggerating it and / or repeating it,

A significant part of the coach’s job is to select the appropriate exercise to make the correction, to keep the crew interested while they do it and to ensure that the correction is incorporated into the crews rowing after the exercise stops.  Keeping the crew interested is important.  If they  get bored, they tend to stop trying and once that happens no further progress is likely. If it wasn’t so boring, square blade rowing (an excellent exercise for building confidence and balance) would be used more often and for much longer as an exercise than it is.

In building a programme a coach needs above all a good repertoire of drills from which to select those appropriate to the crew.  These can be Static drills, ‘freeze framing’ elements of the stroke cycle, Dynamic drills (e.g. half slide or one-armed rowing), or Sequential drills (e.g start sequence or push sequence).  Drills can also be varied by using higher or lower resistance and faster or slower speeds.  Recent work has highlighted the importance (for crews training to race) of executing drills at race pace. The biomechanics of rowing vary with stroke rate, pressure and boat speed. In addition, the importance and control of unconscious movement is completely different at race pace.  That said, all static drills and most dynamic drills are best rehearsed at low speed first.

Race preparation – the importance of marginal gains

Not all rowers train to race, but if they do, it is any coach’s duty to see that they maximise their chances of winning.  My personal view is that most of a crew’s important races will be won or lost by inches, hence the importance of marginal gains.  The exploitation of marginal gains has been executed very effectively by the GB Cycling team (Video here: http://bit.ly/19hk1pG) .  While club rowers may not be aiming at Olympic levels of performance, the marginal gains available to them are still significant.  I’ll give just three examples:

1. Hygiene.  This sounds very basic and indeed it is, but regattas are often effectively a weekend’s camping interspersed with some rowing.  These conditions can cause stomach upsets, and stomach upsets will affect performance.  One of the simplest measures a team can take is to have strict hygiene rules.  Teach crews how to wash their hands effectively (not as simple as you might think.  Video here: http://bit.ly/16j8I1C ), and to take care what they eat and drink.  Unrefrigerated food brought from home should only be treated as safe for 24 hours.  Discourage crews from sharing drinking bottles.
2. Alcohol and diet.  Most club rowers see eating and drinking as an integral part of regatta competition. They differ mainly in what and when they eat and drink.  To be fair, most rowers avoid alcohol before rowing, but rowing with a hangover on the second day of a weekend regatta is still an accepted hazard in many clubs.  Suffice it to say that a crew starting with a hangover is at a disadvantage to one which is not.  As for food, the benefits of a careful training diet can be ruined by an unlucky choice of takeaway meal.  If your aim is to win then take care what you eat.
3. Boat weight.  By all means train with extra weight in the boat.  Keep as much drinking water and clothing in the boat as you need.  In competition, however, the reverse applies.  If every rower in an eight boats with a 500ml bottle of water, they have added 4kg to the weight of their boat.  Add eight pairs of shoes and eight items of extra kit and you could easily double that to 8kg.  I doubt that any crew wanting to win a race would volunteer to carry an extra 8kg weight if you offered it to them. So leave shoes and extra kit behind when you get into the boat to race.  Take only as much drinking water with you as you need in the conditions and empty the bottle over the side before you get to the start (please don’t throw plastic bottles overboard).
4. Aligning on the start.  Getting a boat properly aligned before a race is important to getting a good start.  The cox or steersperson needs to work quickly to achieve and maintain the correct alignment – possibly in windy or rough conditions.  The official or umpire starting the race has a schedule to keep to and may not have to time or inclination to wait until everyone on the start line is happy.  Practise aligning your boat quickly (using bow and two in sweep-oar boats) – as you would practise any other part of the race, with particular emphasis on being ready for the start whenever the ‘GO!’ is given.

None of these will offer more than a marginal gain in performance, but if your boat can exploit as many as possible of the marginal gains available to you, they may just make the difference between winning and losing a close race.