OT - Ready at the catch! --- 3 - 2 - 1 ....... .row!

...or go ahead and go rowing yourself! I love it. Looking forward to every training. The only thing I'm sorry about is that I took it up too late.

--Daniel

Yes, I was part of the team. Here I am in the first race, with tongue,

"More proof the tongue is a very important component in the scheme of things."

When everyone is rowing together, oars diving into the water at the same instant, water racing past the boat, and a strong breeze at your back from your velocity, it's truly grand.

I'm 62, and can attest it's not too late to start if you're healthy. The Gentle Giant Rowing Club, where we row, says they teach rowing as a metaphor for life. I'm not ready to make that statement, but there's certainly something to it.

Rowing a 60' shell with long sweep oars requires substantial individual skill, but the team skills are most important. A boat is like an insect with eight legs that must work exactly together for maximum speed. "The athlete trying to stand out in the eight will only make the boat slower. It is the crew made up of individuals willing to sacrifice their goals for the goals of the team; the athletes determined to match their desire, their talents and their oar blade with the rower in front of them, that will be on the medals stand together."

Sounds a bit preachy, but in our first month of rowing, which culminated in the regatta, we learned only a minimal skill set and pretty much rowed as individuals. In the month since then I'm becoming less a rubberneck tourist, am concentrating more on the person in front of me, matching their movement, with careful attention to my technical details, just peripherally watching my oar and the oars around me, and paying attention to keeping the boat level. Although we're rowing on a beautiful stretch of the river, now I barely notice until we slow or stop. Maybe after I get more experience I'll be able to look around again, but I'm not sure. I've noticed that all the experienced rowers keep their eyes straight ahead, even in practice. It seems to require considerable concentration.

--
 Thanks,
    - Win

In message , dated Mon, 14 Aug 2006, Winfield Hill writes

That reminds me of an often-quoted schoolboy howler: 'All rowed fast, but non so fast as he.'

--
OOO - Own Opinions Only. Try www.jmwa.demon.co.uk and www.isce.org.uk
2006 is YMMVI- Your mileage may vary immensely.

John Woodgate, J M Woodgate and Associates, Rayleigh, Essex UK

Sounds good, but I'm sorry to be daft, what does it mean?

--
 Thanks,
    - Win

Duh! What happens if you row faster than your cohorts ?:-)

...Jim Thompson

-- | James E.Thompson, P.E. | mens | | Analog Innovations, Inc. | et | | Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems | manus | | Phoenix, Arizona Voice:(480)460-2350 | | | E-mail Address at Website Fax:(480)460-2142 | Brass Rat | |

| 1962 | I love to cook with wine. Sometimes I even put it in the food.

Well, get in your boat and try to row faster than your six fellow rowers. One experiment is worth a load of theory. (;-)

--
OOO - Own Opinions Only. Try www.jmwa.demon.co.uk and www.isce.org.uk
2006 is YMMVI- Your mileage may vary immensely.

John Woodgate, J M Woodgate and Associates, Rayleigh, Essex UK

Oh, I know. It's just that I _could_ have had all that fun for 10 more years had I started rowing right when I moved to Hamburg in 1992. All the more since I wasn't a complete novice -- I had taken a few rowing classes back in school so I knew how much fun was to be had.

Yes, that's about as far as I would go, too.

My hunch is you won't be. The better your technique gets, the more you will concentrate on smaller and smaller details -- especially the perfection of team harmony. Although I mostly row "by ear" I notice that when I let my eyes wander (for which there is plenty of opportunity in Hamburg's stupendous middle-city system of the Alster river and its canals) my rowing gets worse immediately.

Another interesting aspect is that I became physically more exhausted as my rowing improved. In fact after a trip in a boat with both novices and experienced rowers the experienced ones will be soaked in sweat whereas the novices are still chippy and untired. Obviously a better technique enbles you to get more actual, physical work done.

It does. Always. And do keep that tongue going. Mine helps a lot, too.

robert

Oh, I know. It's just that I _could_ have had all that fun for 10 more years had I started rowing right when I moved to Hamburg in 1992. All the more since I wasn't a complete novice -- I had taken a few rowing classes back in school so I knew how much fun was to be had.

Yes, that's about as far as I would go, too.

My hunch is you won't be. The better your technique gets, the more you will concentrate on smaller and smaller details -- especially the perfection of team harmony. Although I mostly row "by ear" I notice that when I let my eyes wander (for which there is plenty of opportunity in Hamburg's stupendous middle-city system of the Alster river and its canals) my rowing gets worse immediately.

Another interesting aspect is that I became physically more exhausted as my rowing improved. In fact after a trip in a boat with both novices and experienced rowers the experienced ones will be soaked in sweat whereas the novices are still chippy and untired. Obviously a better technique enbles you to get more actual, physical work done.

It does. Always. And do keep that tongue going. Mine helps a lot, too.

--Daniel

That would be seven fellow rowers. But, yes, I have tried it. Being larger and perhaps stronger than some of the other rowers I usually pull the oar through the water faster than they when rowing hard. I imagine the faster one rows in this fashion,* the more work they do to propel the boat. It dows mean one is at the finish too soon, which requires a slower recovery to be in sync with the others. OK, if the adage refers to strokes per minute, then rowing faster will create big trouble.

• Speaking hydrodynamically, I'm not sure how much of my extra effort pays off, as opposed to creating excess turbulence. If my weight is say twice that of the smallest women rowers, then arguably I should provide twice as much propulsion to make up for my extra weight forcing the boat into the water, holding us back. But, if hydrodynamic inefficiencies mean my rowing can't be twice as effective... If so, this would mean the most efficient teams are made up from similar people. Well, whatever the speculation, it's still true the eight of us can make the shell shoot through the water, which is great fun.

--
 Thanks,
    - Win

In message , dated Tue, 15 Aug 2006, Winfield Hill writes

Well, it was fairly near.(;-)

-- OOO - Own Opinions Only. Try

and

2006 is YMMVI- Your mileage may vary immensely.

John Woodgate, J M Woodgate and Associates, Rayleigh, Essex UK

That assumes that the extra weight has a linear effect on drag, which isn't the case. Hence larger ocean yachts easily outpace smaller ones, all else being equivalent. Lots of nonlinearities in hydrodynamics :-).

No you dont. See

Stroke is already almost at the finish, whereas you are near mid-stroke. Well, this is just one picture, and of course you were concentrating on (or with?) your tongue. And #7's oar (the reference for you) is at a similar angle as yours.

In real competetive sport of course they are because the shell can be tuned to the team. In recreational rowing it doesn't make much of a difference, although different stroke lengths/strengths upset the boat's rhythm and are detrimental, if not to overall performance, to the elegance of the team performance.

Part of mastering the art of rowing is to truly function as a team, which includes adapting your stroke accordingly. Which is close to impossible in a team comprising members of significantly different body dimensions.

--Daniel

As you can see here I'm using my tongue to try and carefully match the rowers in front of me. I shan't criticize the #7 rower, who's our team captain, and who gets the large credit for talking us all into this in the first place. But, if I were to criticize, I'd say there's a hesitation at the catch.

Next spring the Rowland Institute will work again to see how close we can come.

--
 Thanks,
    - Win

Yes, but as I understand it, the basic issue there is hull speed, which is faster for longer boats. So "larger" boats pick up an advantage. Here all the 8-man shells are the same length.

I think we're talking about the hydrodynamic issue of pushing a little way past the "hull-speed limit" with excess work. As far as I know as a novice, some glide time after the rowing pull can be good (slowed recovery, saved energy), but I imagine if this occurs while the shell is above the hull speed it has to be bad, due to the shell's rapid deceleration back to its hull speed in a glide.

I imagine the hull-speed issue is a piece of what's going on in a "power ten." I assume sometime in the future we'll learn about it.

--
 Thanks,
    - Win

In fact, big, muscular people do more good than harm -- i.e, the extra drag they cause is more than compensated by the extra power they deliver. This is why there are different weight classes in competetive rowing.

It's always bad because right after the pull the boat is at its highest speed at which point in the stroke cycle it uses up the most energy. To decrease stroke frequency, roll back slower during recovery, but always smoothly and steadily.

--Daniel

I thought you were hinting that one of them was not pulling his weight ;-)

Regards Ian

In a sweep 8, #7 has the difficult task of syncing port to starboard, being the reference for all starboard rowers, and in the picture she's quite a bit behind #8 but you're in sync with her. Both of you -- in contrast to #6 and #8 -- are also wearing your wedding rings, which I found (in sculling) a painful experience.

--Daniel

In message , dated Thu, 17 Aug 2006, Ian writes

No, It's a bit more subtle than that. I had the impression that a US 'eight' included the cox. But I was probably thinking of gallons. (;-)

--
OOO - Own Opinions Only. Try www.jmwa.demon.co.uk and www.isce.org.uk
2006 is YMMVI- Your mileage may vary immensely.

John Woodgate, J M Woodgate and Associates, Rayleigh, Essex UK

I don't know how the theory from sailing boats apply to sculls, but the "hull speed limit" for a non-planing hull is a function of the length, since that determines the speed of the bow wave. A non-planing hull cannot climb over its bow wave, so it's limited to that speed, which is a function of the square root of the hull length. A planing hull starts to plane precisely when it climbs onto the top of its bow wave and is no longer working "uphill".

All this is moot with racing sculls, which can never reach the their planing speed even if they had a planing hull. I guess to some extent a longer hull will still be working uphill, but with a faster bow wave and more length, their notional climb angle is less, so they'll travel more efficiently.

None of this really relates to the power/weight issue though.

Clifford Heath.