On Wednesday, 7 October 2015 17:23:40 UTC+1, Henry Law wrote:
> I'm just reading "The Boys in the Boat", the story of the Huskies crew
> that won the 8+ gold in the Berlin olympics. It's good; I recommend it.
>
> But there are one or two oddities, of which this is the oddest. Of Ran
> Laurie, the renowned stroke of the GB eight, the author (who is not an
> oarsman) writes:
>
> "But like many British strokes in those days, he was wielding an oar
> with a smaller, narrower blade than the rest of his crew - the idea
> being that the stroke's job was to set the pace, not to power the boat.
> With the small blade, he avoided the risk of burning himself out and
> losing his form."
>
> Can this be true? It sounds highly improbable to me (and to Göran
> Buckhorn, who reviewed the book in his excellent blog "Hear the Boat
> Sing"). My father, who rowed only a little later and spent some time in
> the Irish crew that eventually went to the 1948 Olys, rowed stroke side
> all his life, including stints down at the back, and never spoke of such
> a blade.
>
> Anyone else heard of this?
>
> --
>
> Henry Law Manchester, England
Yes indeed. I rowed for my school at Henley in 1955 (not very successfully) and our stroke had a "shaved blade" i.e. a blade with a little shaved off each edge. I cannot remember how wide the shavings were. The coach's idea was that would help him to keep the rating high.
In passing, it was considered then quite normal to adjust the rig to suit individual crew members. In the same crew I tended to reach farther forward than others, (result of 4 years on a fixed seat) so my rigger was "blocked out": a block of wood about one inch thick put between it and the boat, and an inch added to my oar handle. This was in the days when nothing was adjustable: fixed pin riggers with no adjustment, and leather buttons screwed to the oar.
I have often wondered since why it is unfashionable to make adjustments to suit individuals' different physiques. I recently asked a Boat Race coach, who had a crew with a wide disparity of heights, if he did this. He seemed shocked at the suggestion. Is there any other sport that behaves like this? Relay runners aren't all made to wear the same size of shoe, or pairs tennis players to use identical racquets. Yes, yes I know that's different. But I wonder about multi-crew kayaks. Do they always use identical paddles?
Alexander Lindsay