Boating

by Walter Bradford Woodgate

Whether or not the pupil is proficient in sliding, he had better keep a fixed seat while learning the rudiments of sculling; it will give him less to think about; he might unconsciously contract faults in sliding while fixing his mind elsewhere—in the direction of his new implements.

He should see that his rowlocks are roomy. In most gigs there is a want of room between thowl and stopper. A sculler requires a wider rowlock than an oarsman, because his scull goes forward to an acuter angle than an oar, with the same reach of body. Nothing puts out a sculler’s hands more than a recoil of the scull from the stopper, for want of room to reach out. The sculler should examine whether his rowlocks are true; the sills of them should be horizontal, not inclined, and most of all not inclined from stern to bow; the latter defect will at once make him scull deep. Next, let him examine his thowl. This should be clean faced, not ‘grooved’ by the upper edge of the loom of oars which have been handled by operators who feather under water, and who thus force at the finish with the upper edge and not with the flat back of the loom. Half the hack gigs that are on hire will be found to have rowlocks so worn, grooved, and disfigured, that not the best sculler in the world can lay his strength out on them until he has filed them into shape. The thowl should show a flush surface, and rake just the smallest trifle aft, so as to hold the blade just a fraction of an angle less than a rectangle to the water, but this ‘rake’ should be very slight.

Having now got his tools correct, the workman will have no excuse for grumbling at them if he fails to do well. Let him begin by paddling gently and slowly. He had better not attempt to work hard. If he sees some other sculler shooting past him in a similar boat, he must sink all jealousy. Every motion which he makes in a stroke is now laying the foundation of habit and of mechanical action hereafter; hence he must give his whole mind to each stroke, and be content to go to work steadily and carefully. He must feel his feet against his stretcher, both legs pressing evenly. He must hold his sculls in his fingers (not his fists), and let the top joint of each thumb cap the scull. This is better than bringing the thumb under the scull; it gives the wrists more play, and tends to avoid cramp of the forearm. He must endeavour to do his main work with his body and legs, when he has laid hold of the water. He should keep his arms rigid, and lean well back. Just as he passes the perpendicular his hands will begin to cross each other. Whichever hand he prefers to row over, he should stick to. When the hands begin to cross, he should still try to keep the arms stiff, and to clear the way by slightly lowering one hand and raising the other. Not until his hands have opened out again after having crossed should he begin to bend his arms and to bring the stroke home to the chest. He should try to bend each arm simultaneously and to the same extent, and to bring each hand up to his breast almost at his ribs, at equal elevations. He must try to feather both sculls sharply and simultaneously.

If he finds any difficulty in this, he will do well to give himself a private lesson on this point before he proceeds further. He can sit still and lay his sculls in the rowlocks, and thus practise turning the wrists sharply, on and off the feather, till he begins to feel more handy in this motion.

On the recovery he should shoot his hands out briskly, the body following but not waiting for the hands to extend—just as in a ‘rowing’ recovery. When the recovering hands begin to cross each other the lower and upper must respectively give way, and so soon as they open out after the cross, they should once more resume the same plane, and extend equally, so as to be ready to grip the water simultaneously for the succeeding stroke.

Very few scullers realise the great importance of even action of wrists. If one scull hangs in the water a fraction of a second more than another, or buries deeper, or skims lighter, the two hands at that moment are not working evenly. Therefore the boat is not travelling in a straight line; therefore she will sooner or later, may be in the latter half of the very same stroke, have to be brought back to her course. In order to bring her back, the hand which, earlier, was doing the greater work, must now do less. Therefore the boat has not only performed a zigzag during the stroke, but also she has been, while so meandering, propelled by less than her full available forces, first one hand falling off through clumsiness, and afterwards the other hand shutting off some work, in order to equalise matters.

As the sculler becomes more used to his action, he will find his boat keep more even. At first he will be repeatedly putting more force on one hand than on another, and will have to rectify his course by counterwork with the neglected hand. Some scullers, though otherwise good, never steer well. They do not watch their stern-post, to see if they go evenly at each stroke; still less, if they see a slight deflection to one hand after one stroke, do they at once rectify the deviation by extra pressure on the other hand during the ensuing stroke. A good steerer in sculling will correct his course even to half a stroke; if through a bend, or a wave, or other cause, he sees one hand has taken the other a little round by the time that the sculls are crossing, he will row the other hand home a trifle sharper, and so bring the keel straight by the time he feathers. When a sculler gets more settled to his work, and has got over the first difficulty of clearing his hands at the crossing, he will begin to acquire the knack of bringing the boat round to one hand, without any distinct extra tug of that scull. He will press a trifle more with the one foot, and will throw a little more of his weight on to the one scull, and so produce the desired effect on his boat.

When a sculler promotes himself to a light boat, he must be very careful not to lose the knack of even turns of wrists which he has been so assiduously studying in his tub. In the wager boat, far more than in the tub, is the action of the sculler’s body affected and his labour crippled by any uneven action of either hand. The gig did not roll if one hand went into the water an infinitesimal fraction of a second sooner, or came out that much later than the other hand. But the fragile sculling boat, with no keel, and about thirteen inches of beam, resents these liberties, and requires ‘sitting’ in addition, whenever any inequality of work takes her off her balance. The sculler must especially guard against feathering under water. He is more tempted to do so now, while he is in an unsteady boat, than when he was in his sober-going gig. He feels instinctively that if he lets his blades rest flat on the water for the instant, when his stroke concludes, he obtains for the moment a rectification of balance; the flat blades stop rolling to either side; when he has thus steadied his craft, then he can essay to lift his blades and to get forward. If he once yields to this insidious temptation, he runs the risk of spoiling himself as a sculler, and of ensuring that he will never rise beyond mediocrity. The hang back, and the sloppy feather, which are to be seen in so many second-class scullers, may almost invariably, if the history of the sculler be known, be traced to want of nerve and of confidence in early days to feather boldly, and to lift the sculls sharp from the water, regardless of rolling. Of course, for the nonce, the sculler can sit steadier, and therefore make more progress, if he thus steadies his craft with his blades momentarily flat; and it is because of this fact that so many beginners are seduced into the trick. But let the sculler pluck up courage, and endeavour to imagine himself still afloat in his gig. Let him turn his wrists as sharply as when he was in her, and lift his blades boldly out, not even caring if he rolls clean over. There really is little chance of his so capsizing. If he rolls, his one blade or other floats in the water, and being strung over at the rowlock, cannot well let his boat turn over, so long as he holds on to the handle. Meantime, he must sit tight to his boat, and use his feet to balance her with his body. He must not try to row too fast a stroke; a quick stroke hides faults, and speed tends to keep a light craft on an even keel so long as her crew are fresh; but style is not learned while oarsmen or scullers are straining their utmost. If the sculler finds that he really cannot make progress in his wager boat, he must assume that he wants another spell of practice in his tub, and must revert again to her for a week or two, or more. If he will only persevere in studying even and simultaneous action of hands, he will get his reward in time.

He should not be ambitious to race too soon. Many a young sculler spoils himself by aspiring to junior scullers’ races before he is ripe for racing. It is a temptation to have a ‘flutter,’ just to see how one gets on, but it is of no use to race unless the competitor has had some gallops beforehand; and it is in trying to row a fast stroke before they can thoroughly sit a boat that so many scullers sow seeds of bad style, which stick to them long afterwards, and perhaps always. When at last the sculler has learned to sit his boat, to drop his hands in simultaneously, to feel an even pressure with both blades, to see his stern-post hold on true, and not waver from side to side; when he is able to drop and turn both wrists at the same instant, to lift both blades clean away from the water, and to shoot out his hands without fouling either his knees or the water, then he has mastered more than half the scullers of the day—even though he can only perform thus for half-a-dozen strokes at a time without encountering a roll. He can now lay his weight well on his sculls, and can make his boat travel. He will have done well if all this time he has abstained from indulging in a slide; he does not need one as yet, he is not racing, and the fewer things he has to think about the better chance he has of being able to devote his attention to acquiring even hands and a tight seat. Once let him gain these accomplishments, and he can then take to his slide, and in his first race go by many an opponent who started sculling long before him, but who began at once in a wager boat and on a slide.