When we’re getting lined up, I get scared to be close to other boats. I can get even, but I’m always kind of far away. Can you do a diagram on which rowers you would use to get closer? [whether left or right more?] Thank you!
Sure. Here I just assumed that the other crews are lined up on your port side but if they’re lined up on starboard, you’d still do everything the same way, you’d just flip who you’re giving instructions to.
When I first started coxing I was always a little nervous to get close to other crews too but as I got more comfortable with it I was able to better judge what the proper distance was to have between boats, which made lining up a lot easier.
If there are more than two crews and you’re on a narrow stretch of river, you might be forced to have a short distance between each boat so you’ll have to get comfortable pretty quickly with being closer together. If you watch college crews practice you’ll see that they keep the spacing between crews pretty tight too – it just makes things easier for the coaches and it desensitizes the rowers to having other crews right beside them.
