Scullers and the stroke seats in coxless boats have for years now had the benefit of modern digital technology to measure stroke rate and speed. It may be just an app on a smartphone or a dedicated rate-meter but there is a general acceptance that these digital aids bring real benefits, whether training or racing.
The exception seems to be the rower in the number 8 seat. Because s/he is seated facing a cox equipped at least with a cox-box and these days often a dazzling variety of other digital gadgets the idea that the stroke seat needs at least a rate meter isn’t yet widely accepted in the same way.
To be fair, there are one or two valid arguments against the duplication of information. The first is the fundamental understanding that that in a coxed boat, the cox is in charge and is ultimately responsible for the decisions and instructions given to the crew. A second valid argument is that the duplication of information might be inexact, resulting in cox and stroke looking at different numbers.
That said, I don’t think either of these arguments is ultimately decisive. In any competent crew, cox and stroke work in partnership and communicate with each other more than with other members of the crew. That partnership is not undermined by giving stroke a digital rate-meter. Coxes have a lot to do and allowing stroke to know the rate without asking the cox is a benefit to both parties. The possibility that the cox-box may give a different rate than the rate-meter is real but with modern digital equipment not an insuperable problem as I hope to show.
The key benefit to giving the stroke seat their own rate-meter is that they get constant rather than intermittent information on the stroke rate. Just as a sensitive thermostat makes a heating system more efficient by avoiding large swings in temperature in your home or office, constant rate information helps crews maintain boat speed efficiently with minimum changes of rate. No cox can give constant feedback on the stroke rate. They are busy looking after the boat and crew and will give intermittent rate information to the crew. The cox may give stroke rate information more often if it is changing (intentionally or unintentionally) but there will always be gaps, and those gaps are the problem.
Any less-than-perfect stroke rower is going to deliver a stroke rate that varies slightly. Giving stroke his or her own rate meter won’t eliminate this, but it will improve it, because they will be able to apply smaller and more frequent rate corrections. Any rower knows that when the cox calls “up two”, particularly at race pace, there’s significant extra work to do to gain those extra two strokes per minute. By contrast, very few coxes are going to call “up one” (or “down one”) because they would be responding too often to very small changes in boat speed. So if a crew is for example seeking to maintain a stroke rate of 36spm, the cox won’t usually call for a correction when they see the stroke meter show 35spm but will do so when the rate falls to 34spm. However, if the person in the stroke seat can see that the stroke rate has fallen from 36 to 35spm they can correct earlier, before the boat loses much speed and before recovery of the correct rate involves a great deal of additional work.
This is where the potential differences between the cox-box and stroke’s rate-meter might become an issue, but there is a simple solution. In any disagreement, the cox has the final say. If the equipment is reliable and well-maintained the differences should rarely be more than one or two strokes per minute and with experience the crew should be able to spot whether there is a consistent calibration error one way or the other between the two devices.
Copyright Howard Aiken 2021
The Rowing Club 