Rough Ways Made Smooth: A series of familiar essays on scientific subjects

by Richard A. Proctor

So that if Cambridge were generally the winner in these contests, the Oxonians would be able to account for their want of success in a sufficiently satisfactory manner. The successive defeats sustained by the Cambridge crews in 1861-69 are therefore so much the less readily explained as due to mere accident, by which of course I mean simply such an accidental circumstance as that better oarsmen chanced to be at Oxford than at Cambridge in these years, not to accident occurring in the race itself.

Several reasons were assigned from time to time for the repeated victories of Oxford. Some of these may conveniently be examined here, before discussing what I take to be the true explanation.

Some writers in the papers advanced the general proposition that Oxford men are as a rule stronger and more enduring than Cambridge men. They did not tell us why this should be the case—to what peculiar influences it was due that the more powerful and energetic of our English youth should go to one university rather than the other. No evidence of this peculiarity could be found in the university athletic sports, in which success was, as it has since been, very equally divided. And what made the theory the less satisfactory was the circumstance that it afforded no explanation of the early triumphs of the Cantabs, who won seven of the nine races they rowed against Oxford. Of these races five were rowed from Westminster to Putney, a course two miles longer than the present course from Putney to Mortlake. A race over such a course and in the heavier old-fashioned racing-boats was a sufficient test of strength and endurance; yet the Cambridge men managed to win four out of these five events, and that not by a few seconds, but in three instances by upwards of a minute. If there were any reason for conceiving that Oxonians were as a rule stronger than Cantabs in the years 1861-69, there is at least no reason for conceiving that any change can have taken place in the time between the earlier races and that during which Oxford won so persistently. And as the earlier races show no traces of any difference such as was insisted upon by many journalists in the latter part of the period of the Oxford successes, we may reasonably conclude that the difference had no real existence.

Another theory resembling the preceding was also often urged. It was said repeatedly in the papers that Cambridge traditions encouraged a light flashy stroke, pretty to look at but not effective; that again, Cambridge rowed the first part of the course well but exhausted themselves before the conclusion of the race, through their over-anxiety to get the advantage of their opponents in the beginning of the contest. Critics undertook to say that the Oxford men 'rowed within themselves' at first, reserving their strength for the last mile or two of the course. Now, it will presently appear that there does exist in a certain peculiarity of what may justly be called the Cambridge style, a true cause for want of success, and even for such a repeated series of defeats as the light-blue flag sustained in 1868-69. But the Cambridge style rowed during these years was very far from being a flashy style. On the contrary, the old Cambridge style, which is still too often seen in College contests, and has within the last four years been seen on the Thames, involves the rowing of a longer stroke than seems to be rowed in the true Oxford style. Oxford rowing is pre-eminently lively. Anyone who had been at the pains to time the strokes of the Oxford and Cambridge crews during the years 1861-69, would have been able at once to dispose of the notion that Cambridge men row the more rapid stroke. In these nine races, as in the practice preceding them, the Oxford crew often took forty-four strokes per minute. Especially did they rise to this swift stroke in some of those grand spurts which so often carried the dark-blue flag in front. I do not remember that the Cambridge crews ever went beyond forty-two strokes per minute. Then again as to starting early and being quickly spent, a good deal of nonsense was written. In some of the later contests of the series 1861-69, indeed, the Cambridge crews, urged by the thought of numerous past defeats, made unduly exhausting efforts in the earlier part of the race. But nothing was done in this way which would have caused the loss of the race if the Cambridge crew had really had it in them to win. If the better of two crews puts on rather too much steam at first, they draw so quickly ahead that they soon begin to feel that they have the race in hand, and so proceed to take matters more steadily. In such powerful and well-trained crews as both universities usually send to the contest, very little harm is done by varying the order of the work a little—rowing hard at first and steadily afterwards, or vice versâ. It is easy for lookers-on, most of whom have never taken part in a boat-race, to theorise on these matters. But those who know what boat racing is (as distinguished, be it noticed, from most contests of speed) know that the better boat is almost sure to win in whatever way the stroke may set them their work. A good crew, unlike a good horse, requires no jockeying.

The difference of the rivers Cam and Isis has been urged as a sufficient reason for inferiority on the part of the Cambridge crews. That the difference used to tell unfavourably upon the chances of the light blue flag before the river had been widened and the railway bridge modified, and that even now the Cambridge crews would not be all the better for a better river to practice on, cannot be denied. But I question whether even before the widening of the river, this particular cause sufficed to counterbalance the advantage of the Cantabs in point of numbers. Nor do I think that those who urged the inferiority of the Cambridge river have recognised the principal disadvantage which it entailed upon the light-blue oarsmen.

The first circumstance to be noticed, in this connection, is the difference in the conditions under which racing-boats were and are steered along the two rivers. A Cambridge coxswain has in some respects an easier, in others a more difficult task than the Oxonian. In the first place, he has very little choice as to the course along which he shall take his boat. All he has to do is to steer as closely round each corner as possible; and the narrowness of the river renders it difficult for him to fall into any error in running a straight line from corner to corner. The Oxonian coxswain, on the other hand, requires to be more carefully on the watch lest he should suffer his boat to diverge from the just course, which is far less obvious on the wider Isis than on the Cam. But although the Cambridge coxswain has the shores of the river close to him on either hand, and can thus never be at a loss as to his just course, yet to maintain this obvious course he has to be continually moving the rudder-lines. In fact, there are some 'eights' which steer so ill that it is no easy matter to keep them from the shores when the crew are sending them along at racing speed. In rounding the three great corners which have to be passed in the ordinary racing-course at Cambridge—viz., First Post Corner, Grassy Corner, and Ditton Corner—the rudder has to be made use of in a much more decided manner than in the straighter course along which the Oxford racing eights have to travel. I have seen the water bubbling over the rudder of a racing eight, as she rounded Grassy Corner, in a manner which showed clearly enough how her 'way' must have been checked; yet, probably, if the rudder-lines had been relaxed for a moment, the ill-steering craft would have gone irretrievably out of her course, and been presently stranded on the farther bank. And even eights which steer well had to be very carefully handled along the narrow and winding ditch which we Cantabs used to call 'the river.'

A more serious disadvantage, so far as the prospects of University Boats were concerned, lay in the circumstance that there was no part of the Cam (within easy reach, at least, of Cambridge) along which the crew could row without a break, for four or five miles, as they had to do in the actual encounter with the Oxford boat. The whole range of the river between the locks next below Cambridge and Bait's Bite Locks, is somewhat under four miles and a half. But about a mile and a quarter from Bait's Bite sluice, the railway-bridge crosses the river, and until a few years ago, the supports of this bridge divided the river into three parts. There was in my time a vague tradition that the University Eight had once or twice been steered through the widest of these passages without stopping; but I doubt much whether there could have been any truth in the story. Certainly no coxswain in my time at Cambridge ever achieved the feat, nor could it be safely attempted even by the most skilful steersman. The consequence was that there was a break in the long course which took away all its value as a preparation for the actual race. It may seem to the uninitiated a trifling matter that a crew should get a few seconds of rest in so long a pull. But those who know what racing is, are aware that the slightest break—one stroke even, shirked—is an immense relief to the tugging oarsman.

Beyond Bait's Bite Locks there is a three-and-a-half-miles course, liable to be broken by the manœuvres of a floating bridge or ferry boat opposite Clayhithe. Next comes another short course extending to Upware. And lastly from Upware to Ely there is a fine five-and-a-half-miles course, considerably wider than the Cam, and presenting several splendid reaches. To this course the Cambridge men used to betake themselves four or five times in the course of their preparation for the great race. But a course so far removed from the university itself was clearly far less advantageous than the convenient Oxford long course, extending from the ferry at Christ Church meadows to Newnham. Still, annoying as the want of a convenient long-course must be considered, I cannot attribute the long succession of Cambridge defeats in 1861-69 to such a cause as this. It is true that before the railway-bridge was built, the Cambridge crew used generally to win, and that since it has been so far modified as not to interfere with the passage of a racing eight, they have again been successful, whereas, while the supports of the bridge checked them midway on their course, they were less fortunate. But to connect these circumstances as cause and effect, would be as unsafe as the theory of the Margate fishermen who ascribed the Goodwin Sands to the building of the Reculvers.

It has been said that the shallowness of the Cam affects the style of Cambridge oarsmen. This seems to me a fanciful theory. Occasionally in the course of a race close steering round one or other of the sharper corners might permit the oarsmen to 'feel the bottom,' for two or three strokes; but during all the rest of the course the oars find plenty of water to take good hold of. The Cam was undoubtedly growing shallower for some time after 1860; and the change gave some degree of support to the theory that the peculiarities of the Cambridge style were due to the peculiarities of the Cambridge river. But I believe the notion was a wholly mistaken one; and I am confirmed in this belief by noticing that the Cambridge style from 1860 to 1869 was in all essential respects, and especially in that feature which I shall presently describe as its radical and fatal defect, the same precisely as it had been in earlier times when Cambridge was oftener successful than defeated.

I have heard Cambridge men say, indeed, that after rowing on the Cam they feel quite strange on Thames water. They feel, they say, as if the boat were running away with them. I have experienced the feeling myself, when rowing on the Thames anywhere below Teddington; but most markedly below Kew. It is not due, however, to the mere difference in the depth of the two streams, but mainly, if not wholly, to the circumstance that the lower part of the Thames is a tidal river. It is not noticeable above Teddington, save (in a somewhat modified form) in those portions of the river called 'races,' where the stream runs with unusual rapidity. I should suppose that Oxonians felt the influence of this peculiarity fully as much as Cambridge oarsmen do; in fact, I know that this is the experience of some Oxonians, for they have told me as much.