speaking of nonsense!

[sully]

Walt, my blind sculler is headed for camp next week. I'm sure like in
the
other thread, the coaches there will learn that I've been teaching
him
to row short!

Things have gone well, he did 500s today at a 23 in a Maas 24 and
we were able to actually piece it.

But I thought you'd be interested in an experiment I did today.

I gave Walt one macon blade and one hatchet. They had identical
grips, I rigged the oar lengths and inboards to what I took a ball
park estimate to be similar rigs. Yes, the hatchet outboard was
shorter.

I set the oars in for him so that he wouldn't know which was
which. Yes, I told him we were doing it.

He figured out which blade was hatchet very early on just from
backing,
but told me he could feel no difference on the drive.

What I was looking for was to see when we did our low rate pieces,
that
because he can't see his course and relies on my guidance for
staying straight, that he might tend to pull one way.

My observation is that he generally tends to drift to the portside
when
we try to piece straight, today he was going straighter and not
drifting
as much to port, or drifting equally to starboard.
The hatchet was on the starboard side.

He told me he couldn't really feel the diff.

It was a CII macon and a Croker hatchet btw, both old oars.

[John Greenly]

Fascinating! If Walt were willing, it might be interesting to have him try two oars the same except with different outboard lengths- firstly to see how much different they have to be for him to be able to tell which is longer, but also this might shed some light on your result today: could the steering imbalance have been just the consequence of different lengths rather than the blade shape difference?

cheers,

John G

[sully]

John, all good questions that I don't have an answer to. My
observation was that he had more of a steering imbalance
with two macon oars, seemingly favoring the macon, but I
know better than that, he's just too novice a sculler, the
variance WAY exceeds the expected value, and my seat
of the pants approximations for rig were pathetic!!

Still it was a fun exercise.

I've tried it myself but my sculling is pretty poor
these days, and I make all kinds of unconscious
adjustments, so my judgement is worthless.

[thomas....@googlemail.com]

On Friday, May 17, 2013 8:36:37 AM UTC+1, sully wrote:
> On May 16, 8:11 pm, John Greenly <jgc...@gmail.com> wrote: > On Thursday, May 16, 2013 2:06:14 PM UTC-4, sully wrote: > > Walt, my blind sculler is headed for camp next week.  I'm sure like in > > > the > > > other thread,  the coaches there will learn that I've been teaching > > > him > > > to row short! > > > Things have gone well, he did 500s today at a 23 in a Maas 24 and > > > we were able to actually piece it. > > > But I thought you'd be interested in an experiment I did today. > > > I gave Walt one macon blade and one hatchet.   They had identical > > > grips,  I rigged the oar lengths and inboards to what I took a ball > > > park estimate to be similar rigs.   Yes, the hatchet outboard was > > > shorter. > > > I set the oars in for him so that he wouldn't know which was > > > which.   Yes, I told him we were doing it. > > > He figured out which blade was hatchet very early on just from > > > backing, > > > but told me he could feel no difference on the drive. > > > What I was looking for was to see when we did our low rate pieces, > > > that > > > because he can't see his course and relies on my guidance for > > > staying straight, that he might tend to pull one way. > > > My observation is that he generally tends to drift to the portside > > > when > > > we try to piece straight,  today he was going straighter and not > > > drifting > > > as much to port, or drifting equally to starboard. > > >   The hatchet was on the starboard side. > > > He told me he couldn't really feel the diff. > > > It was a CII macon and a Croker hatchet btw, both old oars. > > Fascinating!  If Walt were willing, it might be interesting to have him try two oars the same except with different outboard lengths-  firstly to see how much different they have to be for him to be able to tell which is longer, but also this might shed some light on your result today: could the steering imbalance have been just the consequence of different lengths rather than the blade shape difference? > > cheers, > > John G John, all good questions that I don't have an answer to. My observation was that he had more of a steering imbalance with two macon oars, seemingly favoring the macon, but I know better than that, he's just too novice a sculler, the variance WAY exceeds the expected value, and my seat of the pants approximations for rig were pathetic!! Still it was a fun exercise. I've tried it myself but my sculling is pretty poor these days, and I make all kinds of unconscious adjustments, so my judgement is worthless.

Its a pretty difficult test to run IMO, I told a story a couple of years ago where I was sculling quite frequently in training for scullers head and a couple of days before I suddenly spotted that at some point one of the handles omn the blades had slipped so one blade was almost 2cm shorter inboard than the other, hadnt noticied it had slipped and hadnt noticed any steering issues at all, its amazing what you can subconciously adjust to

[I. M. Rowin]

<Its a pretty difficult test to run IMO, I told a story a couple of years
ago where I was sculling quite frequently in training for scullers head and
a couple of days before I suddenly spotted that at some point one of the
handles omn the blades had slipped so one blade was almost 2cm shorter
inboard than the other, hadnt noticied it had slipped and hadnt noticed any
steering issues at all, its amazing what you can subconciously adjust to>

A few years ago I suffered an attach of what was diagnosed as "Acute
Brachial Neuritis" which left my left arm and shoulder with less than 10%
normal strength. After 3 weeks of agonizing pain, it took nearly 2 years to
recover to near normal. I continued to scull through this period. Without
any conscious effort, I found that my rowing was still balanced and
straight, though boat speed was down considerably. In fact, when I tried to
pull harder on port (right side), I found it very difficult to do. My brain
just didn't want to produce unbalance forces.

I also had my oar handle adjustment slip once and had a big imbalance.
Don't know how long it had been that way, but didn't seem to affect speed or
balance in any noticeable way. To me this demonstrates that we tend to
obsess a bit too much about rigging settings. The body will adapt to a wide
range of variables.

[I. M. Rowin]

errr -- attach --> attack

[John Greenly]

On Friday, May 17, 2013 3:36:37 AM UTC-4, sully wrote:

>I've tried it myself but my sculling is pretty poor
>these days, and I make all kinds of unconscious
>adjustments, so my judgement is worthless.

You're right, it's probably impossible to eliminate other uncontrollable variables. I like to scull with my eyes closed sometimes (on a nice big lake with nothing to hit) and I pretty consistently find that I eventually veer off to starboard, despite the fact that my port oar arm is much the weaker because of some old arthritis damage. Apparently when I try to go straight without visual feedback, I unconsciously overcompensate for the weakness on that side. I don't feel that I'm doing that though, at all- maybe it's just a fault in my technique.

I think to have any chance of finding a difference between two oars, whether length or blade shape or whatever, you'd have to do it a number of times, with each kind of oar on each side. I think I'll try that, just for fun.

cheers,

John G

[sully]

John. your idea is a good one. I also have a large lake I can play
in, it hadn't occurred to me to close my eyes and say, take 500 meter
pieces at a powered low rate and see where I end up.

It's really pretty funny, back to the comment on how we can get used
to anything. I have one set of CII hatchets around where a
substantial lower
corner of the blade is broken off. When I rowed with them in a boat
a few years ago, I couldn't tell by feel!

[Carl]

I own a pair of sculls. one of which I butchered to make the point that
we really don't understand the equipment we use, & maybe that it can't
comprehend us:
| | | |
| | | |
| \ | \
| \ | \
| \ | \
| \ | \
| \ | \
| \ | \
| \ | \
| \ | \
| 1 | |_ 2 |
| | | |
| | | |
| | | |
|_________| |_______|

That's a fair-ish representation of the proportions of the 2 blades & of
the amount I hacked off just one of them. Anyone seeing these blades
thinks them impossible to use. Anyone trying them finds no difference
between them

There are sound reasons why this should be so, which we can discuss at
another time.

Cheers -
Carl

--
Carl Douglas Racing Shells -
Fine Small-Boats/AeRoWing Low-drag Riggers/Advanced Accessories
Write: Harris Boatyard, Laleham Reach, Chertsey KT16 8RP, UK
Find: tinyurl.com/2tqujf
Email: ca...@carldouglas.co.uk Tel: +44(0)1932-570946 Fax: -563682
URLs: carldouglas.co.uk & now on Facebook @ CarlDouglasRacingShells

[Charles Carroll]

> I found that my rowing was still balanced and sraight, though boat speed

> was down considerably.
> In fact, when I tried to

? pull harder on port (right side), I found it very difficult to do.

> My brain just didn't want to produce unbalance forces.

The question that immediately leaps to my mind : was it your brain or your
feet?

With my own sculling I have found that "balance" has less to do with force
against the oar handles than it does with force against the stretcher.

It seems to me that "balance" is established in the beginning phases of the
drive. Establish balance in these phases, and you stay balanced through the
whole drive.

[I. M. Rowin]

"Charles Carroll" wrote in message news:avtrdq...@mid.individual.net...

Your feet, hands, etc. only do whatever your brain tells them to. I have
concentrated on the pressure in my feet during the drive as a tool to
maintain balance and efficiency. For me, concentrating on constant force in
my fingers is more effective. I get a quicker catch and a cleaner finish
that way. There is a little delay between pressure build up on the feet and
that on the hands, at least in my stroke. This is especially true at very
high stroke rates. I do subscribe to Carl's theory of initiating the stroke
in the hands/arms/shoulders.

My experience with the above mentioned malady only confirmed my opinion.
Of course, whatever works best for you is the "right" way.

[Carl]

Another view, FWIW:
When the blades are immerse you should have automatic stability, since
they & the oarshafts displace water & thus generate righting moments in
proportion to their depth of immersion.

If you drive with unbalanced foot pressure then every other part of your
body will be trying to compensate for the eccentric loading, which may
result in unbalanced blade-work, but the feet should not need to be
balancing the boat during the stroke, only not un-balancing it

During recovery you should have no water contact, so this is where
stability can be disturbed, but here you have no foot pressure in the
accepted sense. So you need to ensure that the load is evenly
distributed on the seat as your new prime point of contact with the boat.

Some of us can never balance a 1x, often because our butts are lopsided,
so the seat loading can't help but be off-centre. Rectifying that
demands adjustment of the seat - raising one side (or that side's track)
by 1 or a few millimetres - which can be most effective but which I
never hear discussed.

Rowing's a simple sport, & understanding it's problems is often simpler
than we like to pretend, so why are simple concepts like this never
discussed?

[James HS]

>>>>Some of us can never balance a 1x, often because our butts are lopsided,
so the seat loading can't help but be off-centre. Rectifying that
demands adjustment of the seat - raising one side (or that side's track)
by 1 or a few millimetres - which can be most effective but which I
never hear discussed.

Rowing's a simple sport, & understanding it's problems is often simpler
than we like to pretend, so why are simple concepts like this never
discussed? >>>>>>

Carl, You are so right. Every part of us is lumpy and bumpy - I have a leg height difference of 15mm (not uncommon)yet the only person who I ever heard mention it in setting up your rig was the Late Andy Holmes. And the design of shoes and their fixings makes it quite hard to adjust - yet the effect is there - my physio spends quite a bit of time fixing the problem!

I guess the 'difficulty' is that we are so often jumping into multi-use boats that are hard to adjust to all these variables - to the extent that I have not adjusted my own single, so that it does not feel too strange to jump into another boat for an outing. And I have not personalised my own 2X because when we take it to regattas we often offer it up as a boat that others can use to race.

I think this summer I may look at something cleverer in the foot plate department - I recently started steering a 4X- again and was amazed (on the tideway) at how often I was trying to row while my foot was either toe in or toe out steering hard - why has no one ever put a gear in to reduce the angle to something sensible! (I know I should fit an aero kit and will look at that if I do more in these boats).

But adapting the rigging/contact points to the human body does seem to be a basic minimum!

[Henry Law]

On 21/05/13 11:14, James HS wrote:
> either toe in or toe out steering hard

All we need is a couple of electrodes implanted in the correct part of
the brain, connected wirelessly to a steering actuator. Of course just
for now the discrimination of that kind of implant is so low that it
can't detect "left" and "right" thoughts but needs two thoughts
dramatically different from one another; it would have to be "Bananas"
for port and "Horrible untimely death" for starboard.

Only sayin', as they say.

--

Henry Law Manchester, England

[JK]

On Tuesday, 21 May 2013 16:38:19 UTC+1, Henry Law wrote:
> On 21/05/13 11:14, James HS wrote: > either toe in or toe out steering hard All we need is a couple of electrodes implanted in the correct part of the brain, connected wirelessly to a steering actuator. Of course just for now the discrimination of that kind of implant is so low that it can't detect "left" and "right" thoughts but needs two thoughts dramatically different from one another; it would have to be "Bananas" for port and "Horrible untimely death" for starboard. Only sayin', as they say. -- Henry Law Manchester, England

Steering by two very different thoughts eh?... roll forward a few years... multi-lane race... mixed quads... bow of lane 3 happens to be rather attractive... other steerers alternating thoughts between inappropriate thoughts i.e. pleasure AND pain!! lead them to row >2000m with a couple of clashes here and there... lane 3 wins by a country mile... Rule 8.3.346c introduced by Competition Committee that all rowers have to wear full "morph" suits in club colours.