Tag: steering

Coxswain recordings, pt. 32

College Coxing High School Racing

Coxswain recordings, pt. 32

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San Diego Rowing Club 2012 Head of the Charles Men’s Youth 8+

This is a good example of a coxswain who is talking a lot and not really saying anything. His intensity is good but it’s empty, if that makes sense. It’s like he’s being loud just to be loud. Something that really annoyed me was at 7:44 when he yelled “eyes in the boat, you keep those eyes in the boat and you focus!”. I didn’t like the way he said it because a) after listening to almost eight minutes of the recording, I understand why the rower(s) might have been looking out of the boat and b) it sounded like he was scolding a dog or something. Something else that bothers me is that there’s a lot of “you” and “your” happening, like “you need to do this for your team”, etc. When coxswains do that it makes me think they take their roles way too seriously, like they aren’t responsible for moving the boat too.

University of Massachusetts 2012 Head of the Charles Women’s Champ 8+ going through Weeks Bridge

The first half of this video is from the stern-cam and the second half is from the coxswain’s GoPro. She did a good job of staying calm and focused coming through Weeks, particularly since the crew in front of them was this close to their bow. Her line on Anderson was way too wide (I think that was because they got stuck on the outside of Weeks) but she definitely still could have made that turn through the bridge if she’d started it a stroke or two sooner and had the starboards power down while the port side brought it around. This reiterates though that you’ve always gotta be thinking one bridge ahead when you’re on the Charles because a messy turn through Weeks almost certainly means a messy turn through Anderson.

You can find and listen to more recordings by checking out the “Coxswain Recordings” page.

Coxing How To Q&A Racing Technique

Question of the Day

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Hi! Love your blog! I was just wondering if you have any tips as far as steering a buoyed course and what to do during the first strokes of the race if for some reason the rowers’ powers are uneven and the boat gets lodged towards one direction. Thank you!

Short answer: For steering buoyed courses, check out the post linked below, particularly the part on vanishing points. If one side pulls you over at the start then you don’t really have any option but to fix it so make whatever small adjustments you need to make to get you back on course and tell each side to keep it even. During a sprint race you obviously don’t want to tell anyone to back off so you should avoid resorting to that unless the pressure difference is so egregious that that’s your only option to keep the boat pointed straight.

Related: Hi! Since the spring races all start boats at the same time, do you have any tips on steering straight? I can tell when I’m veering off my lane, but for some reason, I can’t/don’t know how to fix it! I remember you saying it’s all about the small adjustments, then straightening out, but I can’t seem to get it. [Ex today: all 3 boats lined up, me on the outside, I end up too far out away from the other 2]. Tips? Thanks!

Long answer: You know those “if this then that” flowcharts? That’s pretty much what the rest of this post is. Hopefully it’s not too difficult to follow but let me know if it is and I’ll try to draw it out to make it easier to visualize/understand. (I almost had to do that anyways just so I could keep track of my thought process.) Something to take away from the “big picture” of this post is that when something’s not right, it’s usually the result of something else not being right and to figure out what that is you have to work backwards through what you know and are feeling and seeing in order to put all the pieces together. This requires a lot of thought but if you can work through all that and figure out what the problem is, it’s pretty satisfying.

The first thing to do would be to make sure everyone’s rowing the same pressure at the start. Obviously this isn’t something you can really do on race day though (other than give them a reminder before the race) so it’s important to pay attention to that when you do starts at home during practice. If you notice one side out-pulling the other, even if it’s only the tiniest amount, speak up and say “hey ports, starboards had a little more power off the start on that one so on this one let’s try to match them so we aren’t getting pulled off course”. I have no qualms whatsoever with telling them to not interfere with my ability to steer because if they expect me to give them a fast course then I expect them to not make that tougher than it already is/can be. Few things irritate me more than someone else being responsible for me steering a bad course. If it’s just me steering poorly that’s easy to fix because all it requires is me telling myself to do something different but if I know I’m not oversteering and the reason we’re off course is because four or eight people can’t all row full-pressure at the same time, that’s frustrating because it’ll still end up being my fault and now I have to play puppeteer to get everyone to do what I need. Most of you will probably know what I mean by that and for those that do you know that is NOT fun and NOT easy.

If the amount one side is out-pulling the other is small then I’ll just tell the other side (ports, in that example) to increase their pressure but if they were out-pulled by a lot then I’ll tell the stronger side (in this case, starboards) to back off on the next one. This serves two purposes. One, it lets me steer straight and two, it helps me figure out why we went off-course in the first place. Was it just adrenaline from the starboards, is the lineup stacked on that side, or were the ports being lazy on the last one? To figure out which one it was I’ll ask them how it felt (I’ll usually ask my stroke as soon as we finish and then the boat once we stop rowing or my stroke and I finish talking). If they say “good”, “fine”, “better”, etc. then I’ll leave it at that and talk about it with my coach later. (If we do more starts after that one then I’ll just remind them to remember how the last one felt and try to replicate that.) If the starboards say they felt like they were rowing at three-quarter pressure but the ports say they were at full then that usually means there’s some kind of imbalance, in which case, again, I’ll bring it up to the coach (although instead of doing it after practice I’ll do it on the water so he can address it immediately).

This usually necessitates doing another start so on this one I’ll watch the puddles of both sides, particularly those of my bow pair since they tend to have a bigger impact on where the boat goes – hence why we use them to get our points and not our stern pair. (For those keeping count, watching the puddles would be the fourth thing you’re doing simultaneously at the start … any ideas on what the other three are?). If the starboard puddles are deep and dark then I know they’re probably at or close to full pressure. If the port puddles look shallow or the strokes look short then I know they likely aren’t taking effective, and by extension, full pressure strokes (which begs another question – is it because they’re washing out, rowing it in, not burying their blade deep enough, etc.), even though the rowers might think they are because of how hard they’re getting their legs down. If that’s the case then I just tell the ports to get their blades in, keep the blades buried, etc. (This is usually when someone on that side says “I am/we are”, in which case I get to lean out and say “really, because I’m literally watching your blade every single stroke and you’re not doing either of those things”, which then leads to them getting pissed off for one reason or another that I most likely don’t care about. That’s another thing I’m pretty adamant about – if I’m specifically watching the bladework and I tell you you’re doing something (or not doing it, in this case), don’t argue with me because there is a pretty solid chance you will lose that battle. It has nothing to do with me (or your coxswain) being cocky or thinking we’re better than you or whatever other ridiculous excuse you can come up with – it’s LITERALLY OUR JOBS to know/understand this stuff and point it out to you. It can be a very “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” situation but at least by saying something no one can say you didn’t try to fix the problem. )

Anyways, if you determine that one side’s taking more effective strokes than the other, that’s a relatively easy fix because all you have to do is figure out what technical thing they need to fix and then … do it. If by watching the puddles you only notice one or two outliers (i.e one really strong one or one really weak one) then again, that’s also an easy fix … just tell them to either ramp it up a notch or stop being that person that pulls me off point every. single. time. by thinking that “go hard off the line” means that you abandon all common sense and forget that “go hard off the line” doesn’t work if seven people are rowing at 100% and you’re rowing at 150%. There’s a good chance that most of the coxswains reading this (particularly if you cox guys) are thinking of someone specific right now because we’ve all had that person in our boats at one point or another . (And rowers, if you are that person … please stop. Seriously. Stop.) In the majority of cases you’ll find that this is what solves the problem though. It’s very rarely ever an entire side out-pulling or getting out-pulled by the other – sometimes it is but that usually happens when you’re trying out new lineups, which is why it’s important to communicate with your coach and let them know that one side seems to be stronger than other based on XYZ that you noticed during practice.

So … the bottom line is that if you’re veering off course during your first few strokes you can’t freak out about it as it’s happening, just make an adjustment and fix it. Before and after the race though when you’re practicing at home you should pay attention when you do starts so you can address the issue if/when it comes up and figure out what’s causing it, that way in the future you can avoid losing valuable seconds during your starting 5 + high strokes by having to consistently readjust your point.

Coxing High School Novice Q&A

Question of the Day

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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.

How to scull your bow around

Coxing How To Novice Racing Rowing

How to scull your bow around

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This past weekend we raced at Princeton and during the brief coaches and coxswains meeting on Friday night, Princeton’s head coach mentioned something that I thought warranted a quick recap post of some spring racing “how-to’s”.

We were going over the 2k course, how early to be locked on, etc. and he said that the coxswains should all know how to scull the boats around in order to get their points because the previous week the stake boats were ripped off whatever was holding them in place because (fellow D1 Ivy League) crews didn’t know how to scull their bows around. I saw a lot of crews have issues with this two weeks ago as well due to the wind so I wanted to quickly go over this, that way there’s hopefully no confusion as to how it’s done.

Keep in mind that there’s a big difference between being unable to get your point  due to the wind or current (been there, done that so I can sympathize) and straight up not knowing how and from my point of view (which the officials I was driving shared) it looked like both rowers and coxswains just didn’t know what they were doing (which was not only stressful for them but also for the other coxswains who were able to do it and had to spend 5+ minutes adjusting because they kept losing their point waiting for other crews to lock on and get aligned).

I’ve probably said it a hundred times by now (if not more) but coxswains, SERIOUSLY, if you don’t know how to back into a stake boat and/or scull the boat around to get your point, you need to speak up during practice and have your coach go over it with you and your crew. None of this “I don’t want my coach to think I’m incompetent” or “I don’t want to look stupid by asking a question” bullshit. You have to know how to do this so … suck it up. And coaches, you need to actually teach your coxswains how to do this, especially your novice coxswains. There’s really no excuse to not spend 15 minutes at the end of the day letting them practice backing into your launch or the dock and getting their points.

Below are links to several posts that talk about backing into stake boats, getting your point, etc., in addition to a couple other spring season basics that I think might be helpful. If you have questions on any of this or want/need something clarified feel free to send me an email or leave a comment.

QOTD: Can you explain the hand raising process at the start? Like you raise hand while getting point and keep it up till you’re done? If you’re on the line, how do you fix your point so you don’t cross the line and have to back? I heard of scull/row…(???) There’s no stake boats… just a regular start. What’s the stake’s purpose?

QOTD: A new USRowing rule for sprint starts does not recognize hands at the starting line; they simply wait for alignment and then call the start. At my race today, the marshals called the start before coxswains got their points, which led to us steering into each other’s lanes for about the first twenty strokes fairly severely. How do you let the marshals know whether or not you’re ready without the hand up if they rush the start like they did today?

Stake boat tips & tricks This is a great video that shows and explains how to back into stake boats (in both an eight and a bow loaded four), scull the boat around, and tap it immediately before the start. Rowers, I highly recommend you watch this video as well so you understand what the coxswain is asking you to do. There is no “most important” takeaway from this video because literally everything is important but if you do only take one thing away, for the love of god, please let it be what is discussed at 6:05 – tapping the boat with too many people instead of sculling it. This is one of those things that when I see coxswains doing it I start twitching, especially on windy days when even the smallest amount of common sense would indicate that this isn’t going to effective.

Racing skills: Pre-race prep This post has a lot of information in it that will probably be most helpful for novice coxswains (but also will be good reminders for those of you who are seasoned vets). It goes over getting to the line and staging before the start of the race (both for a floating start and with stake boats) and includes a couple videos that show how to get into starting platforms and what they look like from a stake holders point of view, which is pretty neat.

What happens at a coaches and coxswains meeting? Every regatta is different but for the most part, these are the things that the officials will go over with you before you race. I’ve been in ones that last for 30 minutes and I’ve been in ones that last for 5. Our meeting this past Saturday morning lasted about 10 minutes and was about as straightforward and to the point as you can get. The more experience you are the more this will become the norm but in high school regattas especially, the officials tend to operate with an abundance of caution so they’ll usually spend a good amount of time going over this stuff (and thus, you should be paying attention to all of it, regardless of how early in the morning it is or how many times you’ve heard the same thing over the years).

For more how to’s and race skill posts, you can check out their respective tags here and here.

Image via // Kevin Light

Coxing Q&A Rowing Teammates & Coaches

Question of the Day

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So I had a really bad coach this fall (who got fired so she’s gone now, thank god) but after a particularly windy practice, she proceeded to yell at me for telling ports to row with pressure/vice versa because something got caught in my rudder and my steering didn’t work. She said that if we were going fast enough, our boat would go naturally straight. I’m just curious as to if her comment was accurate. (BTW, on this day it was windy, there was a current, and the water was whitecapping). Thanks!

I’ve had one or two coaches say that to me too but in my experience it’s never really been true, mainly because there are too many tiny variances in pressure, technique, etc. that I can no longer account for due to the lack of steering. Plus, if your steering isn’t working why would you be rowing fast anyways? That’s stupid.  The only control I have over what the boat does is through a credit card-sized piece of plastic connected to two strings … if that somehow fails then I no longer have control of the boat which means I want to be rowing with only the necessary people at a relatively moderate pressure. “If you were going fast enough” makes me think your coach assumes everything would be totally fine if you were rowing all eight at full pressure. Because that wouldn’t end up with you running into a bridge pier or anything…

In situations like that my opinion has always been that the coxswain has the final say on what they do because they’re the ones in charge of the safety of the crew and the equipment. (If you’re a novice/inexperienced coxswain this doesn’t apply to you.) What looks like it might be fine and safe to the coach in the launch might make the coxswain extremely uncomfortable because from their perspective it’s not safe. Obviously the last thing you want is your coxswain to be is unnecessarily tense and anxious so it makes a lot more sense to say “OK the steering’s not working, how do you want to get back to the dock?” Not only does this engage the problem-solving part of their brains and make them think about the best way to approach this but it also lets them to say what they’re most comfortable doing which allows them to stay in control of the situation.

Coaches tend to look at stuff like this as “(potentially) broken equipment = money, time, wasted practice, dammit” which causes them to get frustrated (sometimes deservedly so, other times not) and become a little too controlling. This in turn results in them being short with the coxswain which can be a confidence killer and make them look/feel like that have no control over what’s going on (two things that, obviously, do nothing to help them feel like competent leaders, regardless of how experienced they are). I’m not saying every single interaction (good or bad) needs to be OMG-so-empowering for the coxswain because sometimes we screw up and we deserve to have our asses handed to us but more often than not it’s better to stay civil and turn the situation into a learning experience and then express your annoyance with them on land rather than let them have it on the water in front of the people they’re supposed to be in charge of.

For future reference, if you find that you’re unable to steer the first thing you should do is stop and reach under the boat to see if your fin is still attached. Even if you didn’t hear or feel something hit the boat you still might have run over something that pulled it off. (And yes, I know, sticking your arm in the water is not an ideal solution. Personally I’m not doing it unless it’s May – August when I know the water’s warmer and I’m guaranteed to not be wearing long sleeves and/or layers. In most cases though your coach will take pity on you and not make you do it if the temperature/water is cold.)

If the fin is there then the next thing you should do is see if there are leaves or something stuck in the rudder. If it’s rained recently then this is the most-likely cause of your steering problems and is pretty easily taken care of. I’ve had leaves, seaweed, rope (???), and one time a small tree branch get wedged up in the rudder but as long as you’re able to clear it out you should be all good. If the fin isn’t there then you’re shit-out-of-luck and you’ll have to use the rowers to help guide you home. I prefer to row by sixes at somewhere between half and 3/4 pressure depending on the conditions but if you’re less experienced then rowing by fours might be a better option for you. Unless my coach says to cycle through the sixes on the way home (typically what we’ll do if it’s raining or it’s cold, that way no one is sitting out for too long) then I like to stick with stern six rowing and then I’ll add in bow or two if I need help steering or going around a corner. Rather than have people power up here I prefer to have one side power down and the other side maintain their pressure. In my experience this always works better but feel free to play around and find out what works best for you.

Coxing How To Q&A

Question of the Day

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What’s the best way to steer through a wake?

Just do it. That sounds dismissive but it’s really that simple. I think wake affects the rowers a lot more than it does the coxswains which is why it’s important to tell them that it’s coming and to stay relaxed. It’s almost always coming at you slightly perpendicular to the boat so unless it’s so rough that you’re getting aggressively knocked off keel then you should just be able to row right through it with minimal adjustments to your steering.

If it’s really rough and you’re getting knocked around then just weigh enough until the water is calm and you can pick it back up. Outside of that, the only steering adjustments I make tend to be steering into the wake for a stroke if it’s particularly strong so that my bow stays pointed where I want it to be (since wake coming from your port side can push you towards shore if you follow a normal traffic pattern). Otherwise I just tell the rowers when it’s about to hit us and on what side (“on this next stroke there’ll be a little bit of wake off of port”) so they can adjust accordingly.

HOCR: The course in meters

Coxing Racing

HOCR: The course in meters

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Previously: Getting to the starting line || Steering through the bridges || Landmarks along the course || Steering around the turns || Race plans || My general race plan || Yaz Farooq’s coxswain clinic || Race plan “hacks”

Over the last week I’ve gotten a few questions about whether anything exists that tells the distance that each of the landmarks are from the starting line or from one another and since I wasn’t aware of anything and those of you that asked weren’t able to find anything, I figured I’d just make something.

Related: HOCR: Landmarks along the course

I used RowDistance, a site made by Andrew Campbell, so the numbers aren’t exact but they should be fairly close. You could also do this using Google Earth. I did this three different times and where I found the biggest discrepancy in meters is from the start of the Eliot turn all the way to the finish. My numbers were about 100m different from each other depending on how I laid out that part of the course, which just goes to show how much things can vary depending on what line you set yourself up for.

I also rounded everything up to the nearest -00 or -50 just for the sake of simplicity (although during the race I’d probably just round up to the next closest 100m because otherwise it becomes way too much effort). The first row is the only one that you should ideally know, the rest are just there because I figured “why not…”.

You can either click to enlarge the image above or check out this spreadsheet to see everything.

Image via // @dosdesignsltd

Coxing Racing Video of the Week

Video of the Week: “The Turn”

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I’ll probably do an actual post on this a little later in the season but just putting it out there now that it might be worthwhile to talk with your coaches now or soon-ish about the regattas you’ll be attending this fall and which, if any, courses have hairpin turns like this, that way you can hopefully practice doing them before you’ve actually gotta do it during a race.

Coxing Q&A

Question of the Day

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Do you have any tips about getting back into the swing of coxing after taking the whole summer vacation off? I’ve had 8 weeks off and although I get back onto the water in a week I was wondering if there was anything I should do in advance?

Beforehand I don’t think there’s anything you really need to do. What is there to prep for? I’d just enjoy your last couple of days off, maybe go for a run or long bike ride, and that’s it. Once you get back on the water though, don’t try to jump right back into coxing like you were at the end of last season. Being quiet is so underrated but it’s pretty much exactly what you should be doing right now. Just like the rowers are trying to get back into the swing of things, so should you, which means instead of talking and trying to correct their technique, make (unnecessary) calls, etc. you should instead be focusing the majority of your energy on steering a good course.

Use this time to focus on your basics which are steering (priorities #1-10), observing and silently analyzing the blade work (i.e. do you notice anything “off”, if so what is it, how does it deviate from what it should look like, what’s causing it, what adjustments should the rower make, and what should you say to him to elicit a change?) and feeling the boat (what feels good, what feels bad, do you feel a change after the coach talks to a rower about something, what did the coach say that resulted in that change, etc.).

Coxswain skills: Cutting corners

Coxing

Coxswain skills: Cutting corners

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If you’re steering and coming up a turn, you’ve probably heard your coach say something along the lines of “don’t cut the corner”, which means that you’re taking it (or setting yourself up to take it) too sharply. This tends to happen most often on rivers where there are big sweeping turns, for example, like the one between the BU bridge and Riverside on the Charles. I am so guilty of cutting that one nearly every time I’m going downstream.

In this picture you can see two lines, a dashed red one and a solid black one. The dashed one represents a course that would be considered “cutting the corner”. What tends to cause this to happen is we look out of the boat and see a turn coming and instead of waiting until we actually hit the point in the river where the turn starts, we instead start turning the shell immediately. As a result, because we’ve started steering early this will cause us to end up on the wrong side of the river once we’ve completed the turn (as indicated in the picture). This can be very dangerous depending on how heavy the traffic is on your body of water (that includes power boats too, not just other rowers) so it’s important to take your time and make sure you’re taking it at the proper angle. If you’re not sure if this is something you’re doing, a good indicator is to judge how far you are from shore when you’ve completed the turn vs. when you started it. A few feet is negligible but if you were five feet off the bank at the start and you’re finishing in the middle of the river, that means you cut it a bit.

What you should actually do in these cases is simply wait to start your turn. You always want to go straight just a little longer than you think you should before tapping the rudder. For me, when I’m going downstream on the Charles, the few times that I’ve actually nailed that turn are when I’ve stayed straight just long enough to make me question whether I’ve stayed straight for too  long. There’s this momentary uncomfortable feeling you get and you’ll think you’ve made a mistake but that’s actually the best indicator, at least in my experience, to let you know when to start going. (That applies to a lot of things in coxing, not just how to take turns…)

(In that illustration I actually made the black line a bit farther out than I wanted so if it looks like the “correct” course is going a little wide … it is.)

Another common example for cutting corners is when you’re rowing two or three across and the crew on the middle and/or outside squeezes the crew on the inside as they come around a turn. In cases like this, if you’re the inside crew you have a couple options. 1) Stop rowing until it’s safe to pick it up again, 2) drop down to fours or pairs so you’re still moving but can avoid the other boats until they fix their course, or 3) keep rowing and force the other coxswain to fix something so they don’t hit you. There are a few others but these are the main ones. Option three tends to come off as super passive aggressive but … why should I stop rowing just because you can’t steer? Personally, I think this is the best option all around because it forces the middle/outside coxswain to fix the problem as it’s happening (instead of trying to think about what to do differently after the fact) and it puts the coxswain on the inside in an uncomfortable position that they have to learn to manage and deal with without freaking out.

From a coach’s perspective, it also forces communication between the coxswains because there’s really no fixing this situation without one telling the other what they need them to do. That means that you can’t get super pissed at the other coxswain and suddenly decide you’re just not going to say anything to them. (This is waaay more common with female coxswains but I’ve seen guys do it too.) If you’re getting pushed over it does nothing for anyone if the only person you say something to is your stroke seat. You have to actually look over to the other coxswain and say “Hey Emily, can you stay wide coming around the turn here, you guys are starting to push me over…”. To the coxswain(s) being asked to maintain the spacing, just listen and adjust. Don’t back talk to the other coxswain, don’t get snarky, and most especially, don’t blatantly ignore them. Put your hand up to acknowledge you heard them and then move over a little. If you’re in the middle and fairly close to coxswain on the outside, you’ll need to look over and say “Hey Alex, I’m coming over to starboard” so you don’t end up merging into their lane while they’re still in it.

An example of when situations like this become dangerous is after it’s rained and there’s a lot of debris along the shoreline. We ran into this problem a lot this year because of all the rain we had. If there weren’t full-size tree trunks floating down in the middle of the river, they were stuck just under the waterline along shore. Additionally, if the water level is high then the branches of trees that are right on the bank tend to be lower, which means you can’t just row under them like you normally do. Both of these present problems where equipment and/or people could be damaged if you steer or get pushed into them, which is why coxswains in the middle and outside need to be equally as cognizant of what’s in the inside lane so they’re not putting their teammates in a bad situation.

If you’re one of the crews on the outside, coming around a turn like this means you have to take it wider than you normally would.  It’s going to take a little longer (I donno, 10ish strokes at most maybe?) but it’s not a race so it’s really not that big of a deal. I think it’s good to spend an equal amount of time in all the lanes though (inside, middle, and outside) because it’s good practice for head race season. You might not always get your desired lane on the course and it’s important to know how to handle both tight and wide turns so you can get through them cleanly, safely, and without a penalty. Don’t just go through the motions when you’re at practice, really think and compare what you have to do differently depending on which lane you’re in. What’s the difference in the number of strokes it takes to get around the bend between the inside lane and the outside one? For your crew, is it more effective to have one side increase the pressure or can you comfortably make it around solely on the rudder? Those are the kinds of things you should be paying attention to (in addition to everything else).

Image via // @oh.genevieve