Modern professionals, with very few exceptions, scull in disgracefully bad form. W. Haines, Wag Harding, and W. East, at his best, are perhaps the only exceptions I know to this rule. English professionals, owing to the manual labour with which most of them start life, become abnormally strong in the arms, and trust almost entirely to those muscles. Their want of swing, their rounded backs, and "hoicked" finish they carry with them into a rowing-boat. Nothing shows up their bad form in rowing so much as sandwiching a few pros. in a goodish amateur crew—"by their style ye shall know them." They have acquired a style which does not answer, and which they cannot get rid of, and they consider an Eight can be propelled in the same manner as a sculling-boat. Nothing is more erroneous. They cannot assimilate their style to
the correct one. Two pros. sometimes make a fair pair, because they may happen to "hoick" along in the same style. Professional Fours are a little worse than Pairs, and their Eights disgraceful. I am of opinion (and I fancy most men who know anything about rowing will agree with me) that England's eight best amateurs in a rowing-boat would simply lose England's eight best pros. over any course from a mile upwards. This inability to assimilate one's style to that of another man, or body of men, may be the reason why some excellent amateur scullers proved inferior oars, or it may be that they can go at their own pace and not at another man's. I myself have often felt on getting out of a sculling-boat into an Eight great difficulty and much weariness at being compelled to go on at another man's pace, and only to easy at another's order. If you are practising for sculling as well as rowing there is nothing like being captain of an Eight or stroke of a Pair or Four.
The novice, if he has toiled so far as this, is no doubt by now saying to himself that I am only repeating what he knows already, and that what he especially requires are hints as to rigging his
boat, size and shape of sculls, and various measurements, the pace of stroke he ought to go, etc., Of course, the smaller the blade the quicker the stroke, and vice versâ. It should be remembered that even 1/16 of an inch extra in the breadth of a blade makes a lot of difference. Blades, I think, should vary according to the liveliness of water rowed on, and according to the strength of the individual. For myself, I am rather in favour of smaller blades than are generally used. My experience leads me to believe that racing sculls should be from 9 ft. 8½ ins. to 9 ft. 9½ ins. in length all over; in-board measurement from 2 ft. 8¼ ins. to 2 ft. 9 ins., but, of course, this entirely depends on how much you like your sculls to overlap. When they are at right angles to the boat, my sculls overlap so much that there is a hand's-breadth of space in between my crossed hands. The length of blade should be about 2 ft.; breadth of blade, from 5¾ ins. to 6¼ ins. Even on the tideway sculls should be as light as a good scull-maker can turn them out, so long as they retain their stiffness. Do not, however, sacrifice stiffness to lightness. It is rather interesting to compare these measurements with those of a pair of sculls hanging
over my head as I write; these were used in a championship race eighty years ago, and have a heavy square loom to counteract their length and consequent weight out-board. The measurements are—8 ft. 8 ins. in length over all, 1 ft. 9 ins. in-board; length of blade, 2 ft. 5 ins.; breadth of blade, 3⅛ ins. I give below roughly what should be the measurements of a boat according to the weight of the sculler. For a man of—
| 9 stone. | 12 stone. | 13 stone. | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Length | 30 ft. | 31 ft. | 31 ft. 3 ins. |
| Width | 9 ins. | 10½ ins. | 11½ ins. |
| Depth | 5¼ ins. | 5½ ins. | 5¾ ins. |
| Depth forward | 3¼ ins. | 3½ ins. | 3⅝ ins. |
| Depth aft | 2½ ins. | 2½ ins. | 2⅝ ins. |
| Weight | 24 lbs. | 28 lbs. | 34 lbs. |
As to slide, I hold that a man should slide to a point level with his rowing-pin—never past it, lest the boat should be pinched instead of being driven at the beginning of the stroke. The clogs should be fixed at an angle of 55° to the keel (i.e. an angle measured along the back of the clogs). If the angle is much smaller, the feet and legs lose power when the sculler is full back, and the drive at the finish is weakened. If the angle is greater, the difficulty of bending the ankle-joints sufficiently
as the slide moves forward becomes very serious. The distance of fifteen inches from the heel of the clogs to the edge of slide when full forward may be slightly reduced, but only slightly. For instance, if reduced, as is sometimes done, to ten inches, the body comes too close to the heels in the forward position to enable the sculler to get a strong, direct, and immediate drive, and the boat is pinched.
A very old sculling-boat of mine—and perhaps the best that Clasper ever built—was built for Mr. F. I. Pitman in 1886. She owed her pace to the fact that she was very long aft, and consequently never got up by the head; her cut-water was always in the water, even when her occupant was full forward; and the most marvellous thing was that, low as she was, she did not bury her nose, considering that she had to endure a weight of 170 lbs. or so, shifting its position fore and aft to the extent of sixteen inches. She is a marvel of the boat-builder's art, and was built of exceptionally close-framed cedar, which takes a long time to get water-soaked, and indeed should never do so if properly looked after. Her dimensions were: Length, 31 ft. 2 ins.; length from edge of sliding
seat when forward to stern-post, 14 ft. 6½ ins.; width, 11¼ ins.; depth forward, 3¼ ins.; depth aft, 2⅝ ins.; depth amidships, 5½ ins.; from heels to back edge of slide when back, 3 ft. 5¼ ins.; leverage, i.e. measurement from thowl to thowl across, 4 ft. 9 ins.; from heels to edge of seat when forward, 15¼ inches. She won the Diamond Sculls in 1886, 1888, 1889, 1890; the amateur championship in 1886, 1887, 1888, 1889, 1890; besides the Metropolitan Sculls and several minor races.