You can't pull "too hard" but you can be pulling against yourself.
Tension in your finish, due to the effort you're applying to pull hard,
& perhaps due to extraction concerns, can pit muscle groups against each
other. That tightens you up & results in a pile of useless work - i.e.
work done against yourself, not against water. If you can relax, you
may very well end up pulling harder but with less wasted effort & less fuss.
There is _no_ hole behind a well-applied & fully-loaded blade. That
supposed hole is not a good thing & it doesn't serve to facilitate the
extraction. I'm disappointed to hear that old saw is still being
trotted out.
If you aren't pulling hard very near the finish, then you aren't doing
useful work. At the finish your hands will slow down because the
gearing increases in severity, & because the loaded oar is bent & has to
straighten out by the point of extraction. That means the blade moves
relative to the pin while the hands may not still be moving - but the
hands will still be resisting a (decreasing) load even if not still moving.
You don't "tap down". Much nonsense is talked about square extractions
& vertical tap-downs but, since the boat is moving WRT the water, a
vertical movement of the blade out of the water requires a diagonal
down-&-to-the-bows movement of the hands WRT the boat. So the clean,
strong finish is rowed diagonally down, not in a pretty little
semicircle. But don't worry - that finish won't be weak, & you have
lots of time to accomplish it. Just forget the stuff you hear about
hands having to go away at the speed they came in. They come diagonally
down at the finish & then go horizontally away, & since they pass
through a point of reversal they must also, by definition, come at that
instant to a halt from which they have to re-start. They have no "speed
around the turn" to preserve.
That's enough china broken for one night, you may think?
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