Start at Karapiro

[Christopher Anton]

Came across the Senior M8+ final in the NZL 2008 nat champs. Boats seem to
start in a pen with fingers between the lanes and the bow man hanging onto a
rope. Is this really so?

[Richard du P]

On Dec 10, 9:43 pm, "Christopher Anton"

Please clarify .....

- hanging on to a personal rope, as in keeping him from blowing to
starboard in a crosswind?

or

- hanging on to a shared startline rope/wire above bowpersons' head?

I'm pretty sure I've seen each of those; the former at quite grand
competitions; the latter at a picturesque river regatta maybe in
Cambridgeshire, UK.

..... or something different from either of those?

Richard du P

[Christopher Anton]

"Richard du P" <rdup...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:97e30483-696b-4bbd...@p8g2000yqb.googlegroups.com...

On Dec 10, 9:43 pm, "Christopher Anton"
<c.an...@NOSPAM.blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:
>> Came across the Senior M8+ final in the NZL 2008 nat champs. Boats seem
>> to
> >start in a pen with fingers between the lanes and the bow man hanging
> >onto a
> >rope. Is this really so?

>Please clarify .....
>
>- hanging on to a personal rope, as in keeping him from blowing to
>starboard in a crosswind?

Exactly. I wondered whether this method will be used at the Worlds, and how
you prevent the rope from being snagged at the start.

Cambridge regatta always used to have contraptions built out from the bank
whereon someone stood with a boat hook to keep you straight

[JD]

On Dec 10, 3:43 pm, "Christopher Anton"

This is a common practice at Redwood Shores (link below), the narrow
home course for Stanford University. At one very large championship, 2
dual races were run every 13 minutes. the staring commands were: Drop
the Rope, Attention, GO! It worked great, especially in windy weather.
Never seen it run for 6 lanes.

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=belmont,+ca&sll=45.015542,-93.376798&sspn=0.152416,0.307274&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Belmont,+San+Mateo,+California&ll=37.528141,-122.252941&spn=0.021373,0.038409&t=h&z=15

JD

[Walter Martindale]

On Dec 11, 10:43 am, "Christopher Anton"

It is really so.

These may not exist when the Worlds roll around, but these fingers and
ropes have been used since the 78 worlds to provide bow a rope to hold
so that the boat could be held straight in a crossing breeze. This
provides a small complication (attention! - (let go of the rope and
hope that the kid on the pontoon pulls it out of the way) GO!) but in
the 30 years that Karapiro has used these ropes, there don't seem to
be huge problems.

Not that I was there for 30 years - only 2.5.

This reduces the need for 2 or 3 (in 4s or 8+s) to "spike" with 1's or
2's blades, respectively, to keep the boat headed into the lane
against the wind.

If there's a starting "boot" in each lane, there's less problem, but
this rowing course has pretty big regattas on about 6 weekends a year
with athletes ranging from Sr A internationals to U15 novice, and they
seem able to figure it out. I suspect that there may be a "boot" or
bow holder system in place for the worlds but I don't know - if it
isn't there, and if November in NZ proves to be as windy as it can be
(much calmer in September when it was originally scheduled), the rope
system would be useful... If the international rowing community can't
figure it out, they need to step back and be a bit adaptable...

W