I’m a HS varsity men’s coxswain, but our club spends a lot of time sculling in quads and rowing small boats. As a result, I spend a lot of time sitting on the launch. However, I don’t exactly know what the best way to make use of that time is. Usually I just watch the rowers quietly and mention the occasional technique mistake if I don’t think my coach sees it, but I’m not really sure what the protocol is. Should I tell the rowers directly if I’m seeing something off? Should I try to talk to my coach about what lineups I think are working and what aren’t (he very occasionally asks my opinion on who should get seat raced and stuff like that)? Or is it better to just watch and note what’s going on so I can use it when we do row coxed boats?

I think the best way to make use of your time in the launch would be to do all the things you listed. If you’ve got a camera (an actual camera that you can zoom in and out on), bring that along too so you can get some video of each of the rowers. That’ll give you the opportunity later on to watch it and go over, either with your coach or that rower, the things you’re noticing. From there, you can use whatever you took away from those clips to help you come up with calls to use when you’re in the boat with them. The calls could be boat-wide reminders if you see several rowers doing the same thing or individual ones if you notice certain rowers have their own specific tendencies.

In that same vein, I’d also make sure you’ve got your notebook out on the water with you so that you can jot down anything you hear your coach say that you think would be pertinent for you to use in the boat. Usually when I do this I write down pretty much all the technique things the coach says (I’ll make a note if it’s directed towards a specific person but I tend to just write them down in an “in general” sense), in addition to any miscellaneous quips or phrases that I can turn into a call later on. If the crew is going through drills or doing pieces and he shouts something to them and follows it up with a “yea, that’s it!” (meaning the crew responded to what he said), I’ll also write down whatever it was and what he said it in reference to so I can use it in the future if/when necessary.

Related: Do you recommend carrying a small pocket notebook or having a regular size notebook for notes? I currently have a pocket notebook during erg pieces to jot down splits and times. How do you organize all your thoughts and coxswain information?

Below is an example of what my notebooks tend to look like when I’m riding in the launch as a coxswain. (If I’m actually coaching from the launch and trying to take notes it usually ends up looking like a dyslexic chicken wrote it. It’s hard to write, steer, and watch the boat at the same time.) It’s basically just a mix of lineups, whatever workout we did, any switches that were made, and individual and general comments.

Regarding talking directly to the rowers, I’d say eight times out of ten I usually say something to the coach first before I say it to the rowers. I still do this as an assistant coach just to avoid undermining their authority. I’ll usually say something like “Katie’s lunging at the catch again” or “Have you noticed how X does Y when we’re doing Z?” and if I’m coxing they’ll either reply with “good call” and then tell the rowers what I saw or if I’m riding along as the assistant coach they’ll let me tell them myself. The other reason why I run past the coach whatever it is that I saw is because there’s always the chance where what I’m seeing isn’t actually what’s happening (aka I’m misinterpreting what’s they’re doing or what the effect of whatever they’re doing is) or it’s not something that’s necessary to tell them in that moment. If the latter is the case then I’ll try to tell them during a water break or once we get back on land.

I would definitely use that time to talk to your coach about lineups, personnel issues, etc. and let him know in general how things are going in the boat. One of the things my coaches would frequently ask me is how I think the drills we’ve been doing are affecting our strokes – have they gotten better (meaning the drill was effective) or stayed relatively the same (meaning the drill wasn’t effective). This kind of information would clue them into how well we were using our time and if certain drills were worth continuing to do or if they needed tweaked or whatever if we tried doing them again.