Can someone help me with "sill height"

[Henry Law]

My BR level 2 coaching qualification requires me to record the "sill
height" on one or more boats, but the term is not listed in the
"Technical Handbook" which is supplied as part of the course materials.
The form on which I am supposed to record it attempts to be helpful by
including the words "The sill is the resting point of the oar" but
that's as clear as mud.

Googling suggests that the sill is the bottom face of the lock, so this
sounds like a synonym for "Height of the swivel"; but if that's all it
is then I wonder why the BR form calls it something different.

Can someone help me with a definition?

--

Henry Law Manchester, England

[sully]

Henry

I don't know their answer, mine might be parochial.

the sill height is the height from the top edge of the middle of the oarlock to the lowest front edge of the seat, where the seat is set to where a line drawn from the middle of the sill to the leading edge of the seat is 90 degree angle to the gunwhale.

There is legitimate disagreement with me that the height should be the lowest part of the seat. This may vary by .5 to 1 cm.

In thinking of my reasoning for my measurement, I don't have a problem with the lowest part of the seat, but I always tried to make the front edge of the seat
line up 90 degrees to the gunwhale. Not always doable with the lower edge.
I'll have shorter height measurments for the same heights, but can stay consistent myself from athlete to athlete. boat to boat.

I've always thought lowest part of the seat less easily measured and difficult to get at 90 degrees.

I also think that within a degree anyway it's not very significant, the difference means more.

[Richard du P]

Henry, I can't help you, but what wonderful evidence to support a return to, let's call it, "proofreading"

..... of any instructional material, by someone who wasn't involved in drafting it, and is unfamiliar with the detail of the messages being put across!

Richard du P

[Henry Law]

On 05/11/13 05:58, Richard du P wrote:
> what wonderful evidence to support a return to, let's call it, "proofreading"

Don't start me. The course materials could do with a lot of work. When
I've got the assessment out of the way I'll write my comments up and
send them to BR and "1st4Sport" the company that developed the materials.

[Henry Law]

On 05/11/13 05:22, sully wrote:

> the sill height is the height from the top edge of the middle of the oarlock to
> the lowest front edge of the seat, where the seat is set to where a line drawn
> from the middle of the sill to the leading edge of the seat is 90 degree angle
> to the gunwhale.

Thanks, Mike. So it does seem to be the height of the swivel; and for a
sculling boat it'll be different between Port and Starboard, and the
difference is the allowance made for the crossover.

[James HS]

Henry,

Don't waste your breath writing - there is WAY too much that is wrong :)

You are right that it is the wearing part of the gate, and that it will (through preference) be different in a sculling boat. (Be aware that different countries do right over left and left over right, and that some athletes chose not to have any difference in the two sides!

During my assessment I actually found that the boat had been set up the wrong way round!

PS - during the assessment just do what they want - it is dumb, but go through it. I am a more reflective coach and "nearly" got failed for it - in that I told my crew what I wanted them to do, and then gave them room to do it without yelling at them. Then changed a few things, and then let them run again, then reinforced what I wanted with praise and asked them how they felt - well they were well pleased, the boat had gone from flopping to side to side to a stable platform for the first time. Job done I thought - but my assessor said he thought I was tooooo quiet. I asked him if he thought I had achieved my coaching goal for that session and he said definitely yes - but that I had been too quiet!

I was being assessed with another coach that was much more vocal - almost every stroke, and the assessor said in front of us that he much preferred that style.

While I agree that for an assessment you exaggerate so that they can see you get the point, I still think there needs to be room to develop your style and to adapt it from 8x novices to 4x experienced oarsmen.

But I bit my tongue, passed and have been coaching one on one adaptive over the whole summer developing a style that I am told is informative and infectious - so just get through the process and away from BR as fast as you can!

There is a lot that is good in the course, but we are hopefully old and wise enough to just ignore the rest!

James

[Carl]

Any firm which plays stupid games with numbers in its name has to be
suspect (think G4S, A4E & a raft of other dodgy dealers)

I concur with Richard's pedantry, but the duty of proof-reading - I like
the hyphen, Richard ;) - falls finally on whoever approves the text. I
presume that's BR?

As for this mystical value which no one cares to define, so the data
returned will be next to useless, i.e. "will be useless":
We make a lot of riggers & quite a few boats, for all of which we need
to know, inter alia, the _work height_. We define this _work height_ as
the vertical distance between the _lowest part of the seat_ and the
_bottom pulling corner_ of the oarlock. We further define _lowest part
of the seat_ as that part of its upper surface right at the upper edge
of the seat hole, and the _bottom pulling corner_ as that virtual point
at which the line of the top near-horizontal (but sloping) surface of
the oarlock's sill or lower working surface intersects with the
near-vertical (but sloping) pulling face of the oarlock. I hope that's
sufficiently defined for anyone with a clue about rowing, if far too
tricky for last4sport's copy-writers to handle.

If still in doubt, please take a shufty at our video "How to measure
your boat for AeRoWing riggers" at:
www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=tNbfTnHqFPo

BTW, how about BR generating some rule for computing shell flotation?
It's presently left to clubs to self-certify, without a prayer of
computing flotation characteristics of a real shell, or bothering to
conduct real swamping tests for each class of shell?

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

[wmar...@gmail.com]

What Carl said - kinda - here in the colonies we've not called it "sill" height but "oarlock height" and we've measured it from the lowest point on the top of the aft-most edge of the seat (Carl measures it from just beside the hole in the seat - but ya know if you're consistent and measure the same thing all the time, and your athletes are performing well, it may be a unique set of measures to YOU but it will work.

I think Carl alluded to the point that it matters also if the boat is the "right" size for the crew. Howard Croker recommends that the "sill" (since that's what we're calling it) is 26 cm above the water, which gives his blades the "right" orientation in the water…

Whatever the case - rigging is a can-o-worms at some point - one national federation wants the left hand above and aft of the right hand during the cross-over, another's "lead coach" (one of them, anyway) wants them aligned vertically, both recommend rigging appropriately to make this work - the former with a 0.5 to 1.0 cm height difference, the latter with 2 cm height difference. Both have produced world and Olympic champions…

[Charles Carroll]

> I asked him if he thought I had achieved
>my coaching goal for that session and he
> said definitely yes - but that I had been too quiet!

Henry,

The diversity among human beings never fails to amaze me.

When I am trying to concentrate on my sculling nothing is more distracting
than a constant barrage of advice.

I still remember a lesson I had with Gordon Hamilton years ago. Gordon
followed me in a launch for about fifteen minutes. He did not say a single
thing. He just watched very carefully.

Then he said, "Weigh enough, Charles."

I held water. He cut his engine.

"Try getting your heels down a little sooner in the catch."

I started again, this time very focused on getting my heels down faster. I
very soon realized with the first few strokes that Gordon had taken me to
another level.

Cordially,

Charles

[Henry Law]

On 04/11/13 23:37, Henry Law wrote:
> My BR level 2 coaching qualification requires me to record the "sill height"

Well, I had my practical assessment today and the advice of this group,
and some individual emails from James H-S, were sufficient for me to
pass. So I'm now a qualified Level 2 coach. (For the information of
those not under the jurisdiction of British Rail^H^H^H^HRowing, Level 2
makes you more or less safe and mildly useful; Level 3 and upwards is
what real coaches have ...)

Thank you all! Trafford Rowing Club is indebted to you. Well, I am anyway.

[James HS]

Henry

don't underestimate your achievement - and I have never met a level 3, so you are at the top as far as I am concerned :)

A tribute to your club - and thank you for giving to the sport, I think people would be amazed at how much of the sport is volunteer run, and thanks to people like you who also train in their spare time to give even more!

More power to your elbow!


James