March 31, 1882.] 



KNOWLEDGE 



467 



Of course, I do not advocate the undue use of the arms 

 at the beginning of the stroke. To say truth, I in a 

 sense advocate nothing except the intensely energetic 

 stroke, -which we have seen is absolutely essential to swift 

 propulsion in a racing craft of the lighter sort. That such 

 a strolce must be taken is certain. The eiTorts to bo made 

 in taking it are scarcely matter for theorising. Nature 

 solves the question for herself. Where the good and the 

 bad styles differ is not here, but in the choice of the kind of 

 stroke to be given. The man who sets himself to row a 

 long, sluggish stroke in the water, with a very rapid 

 recovery, wll row in bad style, because the kind of stroke 

 lie sets himself to row is inherently bad. The oarsman, on 

 the other hand, wlio decides to take his oar through the 

 water with all the energj- he can bring to bear on the work, 

 using the recovery to gather his energies for the next great 

 effort, will row in good style (assuming always that he has 

 mastered elementary matters in rowing), because that is 

 the kind of stroke which ought to be taken, and there is 

 only one way in which it can be taken. 



Albeit, as the learner may be helped to acquire a good 

 style (we speak always, be it remembered, of a racing boat 

 at racing speed) by being told how to take his stroke, 

 almost as well as by being told what sort of stroke to take, 

 it may be useful to note that if at the very beginning of 

 the stroke the muscles of the ann are all, as it were, 

 tautened, so that the arm feels the work actively — not 

 merely passively — from the beginning, tlie stroke will be 

 begun under much more favourable conditions than if the 

 arms be regarded merely as stretchers to bear the strain 

 resulting from the action of the legs. There must be no jerk- 

 ing, no arm work done alone, but from the beginning the arms 

 must assist the body and the legs. The other way of rowing, 

 however suitable for the old-fashioned bo its and for tub prac- 

 tice, is as unsuitable where a sledge-hammer stroke (long but 

 full of energy) has to be taken, as would be the alternate 

 action of the two arms. [And in passing, I may note that 

 quite a large proportion of oarsmen who consider they know 

 something of rowing, fail to use both arms with equal 

 vigour, either in each stroke, regarded as a whole, or in the 

 different parts of one and the same stroke. With many 

 oarsmen the outside arm (that is the arm furthest from the 

 rowlocks) does more than its fair share of work at the 

 beginning and less than its fair share at the end of each 

 stroke. It should hardly be necessary to say that this is 

 a very bad fault indeed.] The great difference between the 

 old-fashioned and the modern style, as regards the way in 

 which the work is done, consists in this : that whereas in 

 the old-fashioned style the best way to bring arms, legs, 

 and back into effective co-operation was to let the stress of 

 the work fall on these at slightly different times, in the 

 modern style the best way is to bring all these forces into 

 action simultaneously. 



But the effort thus made, though it lasts a shorter time, 

 is more exhausting than in the old-fashioned style. It 

 cannot possibly be followed by the old-fashioned lightning 

 feather. There must be a recovery of energy as well as a 

 recovery of the oar. Hence the necessity for but a mode- 

 rately quick recovery, and for a momentary pause just 

 before the beginning of the next stroke. 



The oar being a shorter time in the water, and only the 

 recovery somewhat slower than in the old-fashioned stroke, 

 it might seem as though more strokes could be taken per 

 minute than in the old-fashioned boats, or at any rate, the 

 effort be less ; but as a matter of fact this is not the case. 

 In the old " Hints on Rowing by Oarsmen," a stroke of -l-i 

 or 46 to the minute is spoken of as suitable for racing speed. 

 This rate could not possibly be maintained now, e^en 

 during a spurt. From 36 to -10 strokes per minute is 



about tlie quickest rate obtained by the best oarsmen of 

 the da)-, and some races have been won, and well won, 

 with a stroke never exceeding 35 to the minute. Again, 

 as every oarsman who has tried both well knows, it is 

 much more exhausting to row at racing speed in a light 

 boat than in the comparatively heavy racing boat of former 

 days. (I believe that, regarded as exercise, the older style 

 of rowing is the better ; but the object of racing is not 

 exercise, but to attain the greatest possible speed). 



There are some who, despite the absolute demonstra- 

 tion which, as we have seen, can be given to the propo- 

 sition that with our modern racing-boat the oar must be a 

 sliorter time in the water than with the old-fashioned boats, 

 insist on reiterating their belief in the necessity for long, 

 dragging strokes,* and a very rapid recovery. For them, I 

 venture to quote some very sensible and apt remarks by 

 " Wat Bradwood." They were written at a time (1868) 

 when Cambridge exaggerated as far as possible the faults 

 (for modern racing-ljoats) of the old-fashioned style, and 

 when Oxford had carried the later style almost to perfec- 

 tion. Obser%-ing from the Umpire's boat, he says : — " The 

 styles of progress of the two boats themselves are palpably 

 distinct : Cambridge take a shorter time to come through 

 the air than to row through the water ; they go much 

 farther backward than Oxford, and are very slow in getting 

 the hands off the chest ; their boat is drawn through the 

 water at each stroke, but has hardly any perceptible 'lift.' 

 Oxford, on the other hand, are just the reverse of Cam- 

 bridge, a longtime in getting forward, and very fast through 

 the water, 'driving the oar through' (really against the 

 water) ' with a hit like sledge-hammers.' The general 

 style of Oxford has not deteriorated ; though many out- 

 siders fancied that Oxford rowed a shorter stroke, it was 

 more that the time occupied by them in slashing the oar 

 through the water was short than the reach itself ; this 

 deceived inexperienced eyes, especially when compared with 

 the slow ' drag through ' of Cambridge, which often ap- 

 peared, for similar reasons, a longer stroke than it really 

 was." 



And here let me make a few remarks on the utterly 

 absurd criticisms of racing crews made in many of the 

 daily and weekly journals. It would be interesting to 

 inquire how the writers of some of these criticisms have 

 put their notes together. I fancy their plan must be to 

 talk with half-a-dozen watermen who have seen the boats 

 at practice (or snij they have), and to " average " what they 

 get from these authorities. At any rate, the criticisms are 

 often ludicrous in the extreme. To begin with, it seems 

 en regie to say every year of the University crews that they 

 are far below the average. I have seen this i-epeated every 

 year since 18.56, so that as in some years we have been told 

 that the best of the two crews would not have a show with 

 a "second eight" of any London Club, the University 

 crew of this year ought to be a very bad one indeed. 

 Some of these clever critics ought to man an eight, and 

 after getting into due training and practice, take her on the 

 top of a good tide from Putney to ]SIortlake, in less than 

 20 J- minutes, as the Oxford crew did this year in their 

 first trial (under 20 minutes at the second trial, but rowing 

 down stream) ; or else learn, when they had taken nearer 

 30 minutes Ln covering the course, to describe the Oxford 



* " PendragoD," in the Referee, three years since, fell into this 

 very natural mistake— especially natural in his own case, knowing, 

 as he does, much more from personal experience about sprint i-unning 

 than about ro^^'ing. It requires practice both in racing craft and in 

 so-called tubs (really very much lighter boats than those in which 

 most people have ever tried rowing) to understand the difference 

 between a sharj) stroke and a quick stroke, between a long-lasting 

 stroke and a stroke long in the water. 



