I was wondering if you have the same four people & same cox and raced them over 2000m in a quad and a four, assuming they had equal technique in both sweep and sculling, which would move fastest? I tried Googling it but found nothing! I was wondering as my crew is to race a quad in a four race (by invitation) for racing practice. The opposition is older and train more but are the least good in their squads while my boat is younger but top of our squad. I was just interested in what we should expect.
If everything else is the same the quad would move faster because you have four additional oars to generate power with, in addition to the more obvious fact that you’re not carrying an extra 110+ pounds down the course. I don’t want to go so far as to say that a quad’s power is equal to that of an eight’s since they both have eight oars, because in general more rowers = more power, but in this case the power of the sculled boat would most likely result in them being faster than the sweep one since they have extra oars to aid in their power production. I think it could be similar to an 8+ racing a 4+. If you take experience and training levels into account on top of all that, I’d say you still hold the advantage.
You can look at World Best Times on Wikipedia to get an idea – a quad is faster than a 4- is faster than a 4+ as a rule. Also, for a really direct comparison, look at the results of the Fours’ Head of the River in London. Interesting to note that the 2012 Isis II (Elite 4+ winners) was faster than Isis I (Elite 4- winners). But in general, the quads are faster than the equivalent category coxless fours.