We may now consider how the practice of an ordinary eight-oared crew should be conducted. There is a certain amount of difference of opinion as to how long a crew should remain in their tub—that is, in their clinker-built boat—before taking to the racing-ship. Most college captains, I think, keep their men in the heavy boat too long. Four or five days are, I think, an amply sufficient period. Experienced oars are none the better for rowing in a heavy boat, and novices who have much to learn in watermanship, and want a long period for
the learning, can be taught the requisite lessons only in a light ship. The difficulties of sitting such a ship are, as a rule, much exaggerated; and the young oar who watches the scratch crews rowing against a University crew, or sees a Leander Eight setting out for the first time, is apt to be surprised when he notes how eight men, who have never rowed together before, can move along with uniformity and steadiness. There are, no doubt, difficulties of balance and quickness in light ship rowing; but the sooner these are faced the better for all concerned. I am assuming, of course, that the novice has been already drilled in the manner described in previous chapters.
As to the total length of the period of practice from the start to the day of the race, that must, and does, vary according to circumstances. A University crew practising for a long race will be at work generally from about the middle of January until towards the end of March, some ten weeks in all. Cambridge college crews have six weeks, Oxford college crews only about four, for the college races. A London, Thames, or Kingston crew can command at least seven weeks for the practice of its Henley crew. On the other hand,
no winning Leander crew that I have known has ever practised for more than three weeks as a combination; though individual members of it, who had not been at work since the previous year, may have been taking rowing exercise on their own account for some little time before the eight got to work. As a typical example, I may take the remarkable Leander crew of 1896. Five members of this crew—Mr. Guy Nickalls, Mr. J. A. Ford, Mr. C. W. N. Graham, Mr. T. H. E. Stretch, and Mr. H. Willis—had had no rowing exercise for a year; one, Mr. W. F. C. Holland, had not worked, except for a casual regatta in Portugal, since the final of the Grand Challenge Cup in 1893; the other two, Mr. H. Gold and Mr. R. Carr, had been in regular practice at Oxford or at Putney since the previous October. Two weeks before practice in the Eight began, Messrs. Holland, Ford, Stretch, and Graham began work in a Four, with Mr. Graham, the eventual bow of the Eight, at stroke. Mr. Willis had half this period of preliminary practice in a pair. Mr. Nickalls had for some weeks been working at Putney in a Four and a pair. Just three clear weeks before the first day of Henley
Regatta the Eight was launched; but it was not until three days after this that Mr. Nickalls was able to come into the boat, and the crew for the first time rowed in its final order, the advent of Mr. Nickalls resulting in four changes in its arrangement. And yet this crew defeated Yale University, who had been practising for months, and other crews, composed of good material, that had been together for six or seven weeks. I have in my mind, too, another crew, a combination of three Oxonians, two Cantabs, two Etonians, and one Radleian, who, on one week's practice, managed to beat over a one-mile course the Eights of the London and Thames clubs, in spite of their ten or eleven weeks of practice.
I do not wish to have it inferred from the foregoing facts that in my opinion those crews are likely to turn out best which practise together for a very short time. Still, the qualities of skill, keenness of enthusiasm, strength, condition, and racing ability, are factors in success even more important than length of practice. It ought, of course, to be true that if you could get two crews equally matched as regards these qualities that which had had the longer period of practice should win because of its
greater uniformity. Moreover, in most cases extra length of practice up to a certain point ought to imply superiority of condition. Beyond that point a crew, though it maintains its outward uniformity and style, will fall off in pace, because overwork will have dulled the edge of its energies, and robbed it of the brisk animation that marks the rowing of men trained to the very needle-point of perfect condition. And on the whole, taking condition and the risks of staleness into account, I should prefer to take my chances for an ordinary race with a crew that had practised from four to five weeks, rather than with one that had been at it for ten or eleven. I leave out of account the Oxford and Cambridge boat-race, both because of the length of the course over which it is rowed, and on account of the frequent changes to which the authorities generally find themselves compelled to resort. And even for this race, if a president could at the outset be absolutely certain as to the general composition of the crew, he would find, I think, that a period of seven weeks at the outside would be fully sufficient for him and his men. The whole matter amounts to this, that a captain or a coach must consider carefully all the circumstances of his
case—the skill, the condition, the experience and the strength of his men, and the distance over which they have to race, and must decide on the period of practice accordingly. I cannot on paper lay down any fixed general rule for his guidance, but can only bring before him a few detached considerations which may be useful to him as food for reflection. For my own part, I may add that I have never found the least difficulty, even after a year's rest from rowing, in getting into very good racing condition on three or four weeks of work.
How to arrange the Daily Work of an Eight.
Let the real hard work be done in the earlier stages of practice. You thus accustom your men to one another, and you grind them into a uniformity which makes all their subsequent work easier. This plan has been very successfully followed by Oxford crews. Before they get to Putney they will have rowed over the long course of four miles some ten times. As a result, the men are hard and row well together; and during their stay at Putney it is found possible