I’m a masters coxswain, with experience primarily on lakes in the Pacific Northwest. This past Saturday at a very hectic and busy race in this area, I was told by a Marshal to execute a “river turn” as I was crossing the warm up area. I realized with all the races that I have done over the years, I have only actually coxed on a river ONCE, and have no idea what a “river turn” is. Could you explain this maneuver and describe how to execute it without flipping your shell? Typically when we need to turn in a tight area I have the side I am turning towards back, and the opposite side row in alternating strokes. So if I need to rotate clockwise I have starboards back and ports row. It’s a bit of a slow process, is a river turn something faster?

What you’re doing is a river turn. I’ve never heard that term before though and actually had to Google it to find out what it meant (there weren’t very many results either). Apparently it’s also called a “scissor stroke” but it seemed like that one was used more with sculling than sweep rowing. Hopefully it’s not just me that’s never heard “river turn” used before … I feel like a lot of people probably wouldn’t know what it means though if a course marshal told them to “execute a river turn”.

I’ve found that turning with four rowers is just as fast or faster than trying to turn with all eight so I tend to have bow and three row and six and stroke back. I was always taught (and it’s been reinforced many times since then) that you just don’t turn to starboard unless you row on a river that has an opposite traffic pattern. If you are turning to starboard though for whatever reason, you’d have two and four row and five and seven back. Using four people instead of all eight helps keep the boat set more than anything else; 99.9% of the reason why turning with all eight is usually such a hassle is because it’s offset and one side can’t get their blades out of the water. The “fast” part of it comes not from speed but from power. As long as the people rowing/backing are doing so with an adequate amount of pressure, it really shouldn’t take more than say, 7ish strokes to turn the boat.

As far as flipping the boat goes, I’ve said this many times and I’ll say it again … it takes a special kind of stupid to flip an eight. Like, a seriously special kind of stupid. I’ve never heard of a crew flipping while turning (although in small boats it’d make sense if that’s when it happened) so it’s really not something you need to worry about.