Rigging up a sweep rowing simulator from an ergo?

[Henry Law]

When I learned to row, decades ago at college, they just took you over
to an eight beside the dock, told you to sit down and pull the handle,
then shouted at you until you got it right. In my club these days we
start in wide training sculling boats, to get the basic body action down
and to teach squaring and feathering: sweep comes much later, but
essentially it's the same story: "sit down there and pull that", but the
problems come in teaching the assymmetric body action after weeks of
more-or-less symmetrical sculling.

I'm toying with the idea of temporarily rigging up some kind of
structure at the side of an ergo, with a pin and a gate and at the right
height for the ergo seat, so that the student could sit on the ergo,
with a real blade in this contraption, and be coached through the torso
movements, and the different roles of the arms, involved in the sweep
stroke. This is only for a few minutes and doesn't need to sustain any
effort on the part of the student.

Anyone ever done this? Even if not, any ideas on how to fabricate the
thing? Wood, I think: easy to work and durable. I have an old pin and
gate.

--
Henry Law n e w s @ l a w s h o u s e . o r g
Manchester, England

[Mike Fennelly]

http://www.paternion.com/gamut/3/

[Sarah Harbour]

Roger Silk made a few in Cambridge mid-00s (CUWBC had one and I think there were a couple floating (!) around some of the college boathouses - probably at least LMBC). As I remember, he attached riggers to the slide of the C2 so that the cut off blade handles (with small ring weights on the end after a double button) fitted into a normal gate and pin at the appropriate distance.

I do think though that there was nothing wrong with bank tubs and really, those should come back into fashion.

Sarah

[Henry Law]

On 21/08/2019 21:04, Sarah Harbour wrote:
> I do think though that there was nothing wrong with bank tubs and really, those should come back into fashion.

Agreed. I've looked at that but our canal has a stone capping which is
generally at least 150mm above the water, sometimes more, and whatever
we'd have would need to be standing on top of that (on the edge of the
towpath); the geometry wouldn't work.

[carl]

On 21/08/2019 22:17, Henry Law wrote:
> On 21/08/2019 21:04, Sarah Harbour wrote:
>> I do think though that there was nothing wrong with bank tubs and
>> really, those should come back into fashion.
>
> Agreed.  I've looked at that but our canal has a stone capping which is
> generally at least 150mm above the water, sometimes more, and whatever
> we'd have would need to be standing on top of that (on the edge of the
> towpath); the geometry wouldn't work.
>

Sarah mentions the floating bank-tub. While far from perfect it does
provide a perfectly adequate (& safe) way to introduce the novice to
sweep rowing (nd they were always made from wood). Why complicate life
by involving the erg?

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...@carldouglasrowing.com Tel: +44(0)1932-570946 Fax: -563682
URLs: carldouglasrowing.com & now on Facebook @ CarlDouglasRacingShells

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[Henry Law]

On 22/08/2019 13:59, carl wrote:
> Why complicate life by involving the erg?

I suspect that I didn't make my idea clear at the outset, because the
answer to Carl's question is "because it saves me from having to
construct a sliding seat". My idea is simply to provide a way of
allowing a sculler to be instructed in the correct way to move the arms
and torso, and the different roles of the two hands, when converting to
sweep.

I'm only interested in the geometry: I don't want the athlete to take a
stroke (other than in slow motion). I don't envisage anyone sitting on
this thing for more than five minutes, while the coach gets them into
the right catch and finish positions.

Anyway, I'm now exploring the idea of a bank tub (see separate thread),
except I've no idea where we'd store the thing ...

[Sarah Harbour]

So we (Mel and I) have on occasion demonstrated positioning at the catch and finish in a 4 held in to the bank with the other three rowers holding it level and steady, but I don't think that would be advisable with a novice (mostly it was to show more experienced rowers how they should be sat properly at the catch without dipping their outside shoulders like most of the college rowers here do...)

Sarah

[Peter]

In my day it was 2 tub 4s rigged for one side each and joined by a plank walkway. A heavy beast to haul out onto it's wheeled bogey for storage. Also fairly heavy for rowing up and down the river...
Another option i've seen was a large water-tank accessed by climbing to a raised platform with the slide/rigger.
Any stationary rig needs perforated blades for a reasonable simulation.
Perhas oen cud come up with a simpler 1-2 man option with a boat with added stabilisers tethered to the bank. Or if one really needs to keep things light and stowable then an entrepreneur could come up with an inflatable boat collar..

pgk

[m...@nicholasthorn.com]

I fixed an ex-CUW one and got it working at '99s last year. It was surprisingly tricky working out the pulley arrangement. I thought it was fairly useful and practiced my strokeside on it for a while but no one else used it so it was binned. The Downing tank or 8+s as rolling 6s with one pair sitting the boat seems to be the simplest high-throughput way for novices on the Cam. Agreed on bank tubs though!

Nick