Hi! First off, your blog is so helpful! I’m finishing off my novice year as a rower this spring, but I am switching to coxing full time for the fall season. Do I get another novice year as a coxswain too? Second, my coach told me to only touch the rudder when the blades are in the water, and I understand that. But does that mean that I touch it for the drive, put it to straight on the recovery, and then touch it again on the drive? Or should I only touch it once on the drive and that should be enough? Thanks!
It’d be best to ask your coach because I feel like most teams do “novice” a little differently, at least based on the questions and stuff I’ve been asked through the blog. On my high school team if you were a rower you could “repeat” your novice year if you were only able to complete X% of the spring season. I can’t remember the amount specifically but I think it was like, if you only raced once or twice and/or had something that prevented you from participating for more than half the season (grades, medical issues, etc.) then you were allowed to be a novice again the following year. As a coxswain though, it never mattered if we were novices or not when we had that boat. In addition to the other boats I had, I coxed the novice 8+ my freshman year, my senior year, and once or twice my sophomore year when their regular coxswain was out. It’s kind of like masters rowing – there’s different age categories for each class but the coxswain’s age doesn’t count. We viewed coxing novices the same way and there was never an issue at the regattas we attended. In your case, my guess is that since you’ve already rowed for a year but have never coxed that you’ll probably be with the novices simply because you’ll all be “new” in the sense that they’ve never rowed and you’ve never coxed (full-time), even though you have a year of rowing experience under your belt. Talk with your coach(es) though, they’ll be able to tell you for sure.
Steering on the drive is the standard rule of thumb but every boat is a little different so you’ve gotta find what works for you. When you’re racing or doing pieces you should definitely only be steering on the drive since you want to minimize how much you’re disrupting the set but during practice, it’s really not that big of a deal if you steer on the drive and recovery as long as you tell the rowers so they can adjust their handle heights to compensate. (I briefly mentioned that in the post linked below too.)
Related: How to steer an eight or four
As far as how to steer on the drive, yes, you typically touch it on the drive, go back to straight on the recovery, and then touch it again as necessary on the subsequent drives. This is also known as pulse-steering. Personally I think it’s annoying and tedious which is why I don’t do it. Unless I’m racing I’d rather just hold the cable through the drive and recovery of one full stroke rather than pulse steer for two or three. Like I said though, find what works for you and stick with it. Some boats are a little more touchy so pulse steering works fine but for others, like our Empacher, you basically have to hold the cable as far up as you can through the full drive and recovery (and occasionally say a few Hail Mary’s) if you want to make any of the turns without ending up in the middle of the river.
