to ease them in their work, so as to bring them fresh and vigorous to the post on the day of the race. Supposing you have five weeks for practice, you ought, I think, during the first fortnight to row your crew over the racing course at least four times. During the next ten days one full course will be sufficient. The work of the last ten days must vary according to the condition of the men, but two half courses and one full course at a racing stroke will probably be found sufficient. Save for the rare case of an exceptionally long row, a practice of about an hour and a half every day is enough. At Henley all crews practise twice a day, but I do not think they spend more than two hours, if so much, on the water every day.
Rate of Stroke.
The practice rate for paddling ought not in the early stages to be less than twenty-eight to the minute, which you may raise two points when rowing hard. Later on, when your men are doing their rowing work at thirty-six or more, and when they are, or ought to be, well together, you may drop the rate of paddling to twenty-six or twenty-five, in order to give them periods of rest, and to
instil into them that steadiness of swing which they are apt to neglect when engaged in the effort of working up the stroke to racing pace. For a course of a mile to a mile and a half, a crew should be able to start at forty, continue at thirty-eight, and, if necessary, finish at forty in the race. Even for the Putney to Mortlake course a crew ought to be able to command forty at a pinch. As a rule, however, over a four-mile course a crew will go quite fast enough if it starts for not more than a minute at thirty-seven to thirty-eight, and continues, in the absence of a head-wind at an average of thirty-five.[9] At Henley most crews will start off at forty-one to forty-two for the first minute, and continue at thirty-nine. Anything higher than this is dangerous, though on a course of two-thirds of a mile I have known a Four to row forty-six in the first minute with advantage.
[9] Against a head-wind the rate of stroke must be slower. A coach's instructions would be, "Swing down and reach out well, and swing hard back against the wind." A following wind makes a crew very unsteady, unless they remember that, since the pace of the boat is increased by the wind, they must catch the beginning sharper, to prevent the boat running away from them, and take their oars out even quicker and cleaner than before, in order to prevent the boat catching them up, as it were. Above all, they must keep the swing slow when they have a following wind.
These instructions are intended to apply to light racing ships. For the clinker-built fixed-seat boats that are used at Oxford and Cambridge for the Torpids and Lent races, a racing rate of thirty-seven ought to be high enough, seeing that the crews are mainly composed of young oars. The second division crews of the Cambridge "May" races row with slides, but in heavy, clinker-built boats. The advantages of this arrangement are not obvious. Still, these crews ought to be able to race at thirty-six to thirty-seven. As a rule, however, when I have seen them practising a minute's spurt, nearly all of them seem to have imagined that thirty-two strokes were amply sufficient for racing purposes.
Paddling.
Paddling should be to rowing what an easy trot is to racing speed on the cinder-path. A crew when paddling is not intended to exert itself unduly, but to move at a comfortable pace which excludes any sense of fatigue, and enables the men to give their best attention to perfecting themselves in style, and to harmonizing their individual movements with those of the rest.
In paddling men do not slash at the beginning so hard, nor do they grind the rest of the stroke through with the same power as when rowing. Less violent energy is put into the work, and the stroke consequently does not come through so fast. The rate of paddling must therefore be slower than that of rowing, since each stroke takes a longer time for its completion. As a rule, too, the blade is in paddling not quite so deeply covered, and cannot make the same rushing swirl under water. During the earlier stages of practice paddling is merely easier rowing; it is not so sharply distinguished from hard rowing as it becomes later on. At the outset it is necessary to make your crew both paddle and row with a full swing, in order to get length ineradicably fixed in their style. But later on a coach may tell his men, when he asks them to paddle, not only to use the easier movements prescribed above, but also to rest themselves additionally by using a somewhat shortened swing. Then, when they are to row, he must call on them to swing forward and reach out longer; to swing back harder and longer, with a more vigorous beginning; and to put