University coxswains have easier tasks in these days than their predecessors before 1868. Until the Thames Conservancy obtained statutory powers in 1868 to clear the course for boat-racing, it used to be a ticklish matter to pick a safe course on a flood tide. There would be strings of barges towed, and many more sailing, others ‘sweeping,’ up river. Traffic did not stop for sport. Coxswains often found themselves in awkward predicaments to avoid such itinerant craft, more so when barges were under sail against a head wind, and were tacking from shore to shore. In 1866 a barge of this sort most seriously interfered with the Cambridge crew in Horse Reach, just when Oxford had, after a stern race, given them the go-by off the Bathing-place. It extinguished any chance which might have been left for Cambridge.
In the preceding year C. R. W. Tottenham immortalised himself by a great coup with a barge. She was tacking right across his course (Oxford had just gone ahead after having been led by a clear length through Hammersmith Bridge). This was just below Barnes Bridge. Many a pilot would have tried to go round the bows of that barge. At the moment when she shaped her course to tack across tide there seemed to be ample room to pass in front of her. Tottenham never altered his course, and trusted to his own calculations. Presently the barge was broadside on to Oxford’s bows, and only a few lengths ahead. Every one in the steamers astern stood aghast at what seemed to be an inevitable smash. The barge held on, and so did Oxford, and the barge passed clear away just before Oxford came up. Even if she had hung a little, in a lull of wind, it would have been easy for Oxford to deflect a trifle and pass under her stern. Anything was better than attempting to go round her bows, which at first seemed to be the simplest course to spectators not experts at pilotage. It must be admitted that so much nerve and judgment at a pinch have never before or since been displayed by any coxswain in a University match. Tottenham had his opportunity and made the most of it. He steered thrice afterwards, but even if he had never steered again he had made his reputation by this one coup. In justice to other crack coxswains, such as Shadwell and Egan of old, and, par excellence, G. L. Davis in the present day, we must assume that if they had been similarly tried they would have been equally triumphant.
FEATHER ‘UNDER’ THE WATER.