Video of the Sculler's Catch

[Charles Carroll]

Dear all,

I had a lesson with Ric Ricci Tuesday. Ric thought it would be a good idea
if I “revisited Frank Cunningham’s idea of the Sculler’s Catch.”

So I had about 5 minutes this morning, used it to Google “Sculler’s Catch,”
and found the following video, which was made in 1972 by Frank Cunningham
and Stan Pocock.

A demonstration of the “Sculler’s Catch” begins about 3 minutes into the
video. It looks exactly the way Frank Cunningham describes it in “The
Sculler at Ease,” p. 66 in my edition.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4pxeBp1X9Q

Cordially,

Charles



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[sully]

On Thursday, November 6, 2014 5:29:13 PM UTC-8, Charles Carroll wrote:
> Dear all,
>
> I had a lesson with Ric Ricci Tuesday. Ric thought it would be a good idea
> if I "revisited Frank Cunningham's idea of the Sculler's Catch."
>
> So I had about 5 minutes this morning, used it to Google "Sculler's Catch,"
> and found the following video, which was made in 1972 by Frank Cunningham
> and Stan Pocock.
>
> A demonstration of the "Sculler's Catch" begins about 3 minutes into the
> video. It looks exactly the way Frank Cunningham describes it in "The
> Sculler at Ease," p. 66 in my edition.
>

>.
> http://www.avast.com

When Frank was alive and well I said the same thing. This is terrible sculling or rowing whatever they want to call it. I've argued with Conn about it and with a host of Frank's fans. I'm a HUGE Frank Cunningham admirer.

Good stuff. He holds water correctly, and I love the demonstration of the lost art of side sculling.

Not so good:

In the hands portion, he never lets go of the oars, he's always gripping. The hand position is pretty good if you don't bury the blades and if you don't clear the water. If you ever buried the blades and if you got them off the water, the hand path would not be so flat.

a few minutes in you see his blade is never quite buried and his blade always ticks on the recovery.

The catches that you put on the title of the thread are atrocious. These are catches beginner scullers can execute by themselvee. Take a stroke, stop the vid at the sternmost reach, then stop it again when the blade is buried. A solid foot.

I called out a coach several years ago here on a Cunningham/Pocock video where they were demonstrating the "scullers release". This is the illusion that you can keep your blade buried and magically feather it out. As Frank tried to demonstrate it he got stuck. Then he had Stan do it, Stan pushed the handle down to release as he feathered... Frank said: "that's it, that's what I was talking about"

One of the primary components of a sculler at ease is that the hand is mostly relaxed on the handle at all aspects of the stroke cycle. At this, I don't see him doing it. BTW, I prolly don't do it either. I especially didn't do it when I was an athlete! My hands were terrible.

[s...@ku.edu]

Sully,

Excellent post. I have felt the same about this Cunningham vid but never wanted to offend the true believers. Cunningham did so much for our sport that it is hard to point out how bad some of his advice is/was. It is hard to remember, but one of the last scullers Cunningham coached to elite level, Jen Devine, did not use the sculler's catch.

Steven M-M

[rolyb...@googlemail.com]

But a really interesting camera position, as if its fixed to the gate, probably not so easy to do in 1972, with a cine camera?
Roly

[Charles Carroll]

> The catches that you put on the title of the thread
> are atrocious. These are catches beginner scullers

> can execute by themselves. Take a stroke, stop
> the vid at the stern most reach, then stop it again

> when the blade is buried. A solid foot.

Mike,

Agreed! The demonstration is not exactly perfect.

But isn’t the point that it is a “demonstration” as opposed to an actual
depiction of a “sculler’s catch?”

Would the catch look the same, or would blade entry necessitate a solid
foot, if the sculler had been sculling rhythmically?

What I am questioning is this. Is the “Sculler’s Catch” actually so
ill-advised? I know that for some it is very cut-and-dried that it is
totally the wrong way to catch. But below are two dissenting voices. The
first is Valery Kleshnev’s, the second Frank Cunningham himself.

My own observation is that in rough water I have found a sculler’s catch
very serviceable.

Cordially,

Charles

————/

Q: How can a faster vertical acceleration before the catch be achieved?

A: The main problem for a rower before the catch is combining the vertical
push upwards with squaring the oar. It is much easier to separate these two
movements and to do the squaring first and then to place the blade into the
water. This method should be recommended for beginners and young rowers.
However, as we showed before (RBN 2006/4), early squaring dramatically
increases the aerodynamic resistance of the blade. Also, rough water
conditions do not allow early squaring. Therefore, elite rowers very often
practice a combination of squaring with simultaneous upwards acceleration of
the handle.

Effective usage of the thumb is really important. It is easier to do in
rowing, but in sculling the task is more difficult because the thumb also
has to push the handle outwards to keep the oar button in contact with the
swivel. The thumb must be placed at the outer-bottom edge of the grip and
holds it with the base of the distal phalange (Fig. a). During the recovery,
the thumb must control the vertical position of the handle and push it
forward. Suddenly, before catch the thumb switches from pushing forward to
kicking upwards in combination with bending backwards (Fig. b), this allows
a quick squaring of the oar followed immediately by placing it in the water.
(RBN May 2007)

——————/
THE SCULLER’S CATCH

At the zoo the one day I stood awhile watching orangutans moving about in a
desultory way, filling the time, as it were, swinging their arms and
deciding whether or not to commit themselves to some small exertion or
other. Their movements, then, were nearly unpredictable, so when they
committed themselves to a convenient branch, the resultant swinging flight
was magically abrupt. I watched their hands to see how they anticipated
their holds, and discovered that the opening and closing of their fingers
was so casual as to suggest that their fingers were operating independently
of their owners. And, of course, they were executing the perfect sculler’s
catch, hooking the branches with their fingers!

But why should an orangutan be able to execute the catch better than most
rowers and scullers? There are, I believe, two reasons. One is that the
orangutan’s thumb is placed differently on its hand, lower, one might say,
and out of the way. The second is that the thumb is not completely
opposable. When we bring the thumb into play either under the handle or
across the end of it, a familiar reflex is called into play and the thumb
closes on and grasps the handle. To grasp the branch with the thumb would
result in serious damage to the inside of the thumb and the palm of the
hand. The form of the orangutan’s hand is a perfectly shaped device for
insuring the survival of the species of an animal that lives in trees.

So, in order to manage an oar or scull properly, we have paradoxically to
turn back the evolutionary clock and learn the use of our hands as if we did
not possess opposable thumbs.
—Frank Cunningham, “The Sculler at Ease,” p. 30

THE IDEAL CATCH

Starting the stroke with the blades already covered is the ideal way to
begin; however, it can only be used for the first stroke. Many crews start
races this way. , Still, it gives us minimum check, and a basis for gauging
the effectiveness of the next two catches. —Frank Cunningham, “The Sculler
at Ease,” p. 66

THE LOGICAL CATCH

Catching with the blades already squared above the water would seem to be
the most logical way to begin, except that in practice the blades must be
kept safely off the water until they change direction, so the center of 6 ½
inch wide sculling blades will be at least 3 ¼ inches off the water. The
tops of the blades will have to travel at least 6 ½ inches downward before
they are covered, during which the sculls swing through a considerable
portion of their arc. Meanwhile the thrust of your legs will drive the boat
backwards.

To test this effect, rest the blades in the water squared, then pop them out
and catch. After a few trials, you will be able to reproduce the squared up
catch as it would be in a moving boat. You will find that you have pushed
the stern further back than when you did when you began the stroke with the
blades covered. —Frank Cunningham, “The Sculler at Ease,” p. 66

THE SCULLER’S CATCH

In the third test lay the blades feathered on the water. The object is to
catch as if the blades were already covered, so let your fingers turn the
blade as you pull. Pulling the blades in will load them virtually as quickly
as if they had already been buried and will produce a markedly shorter
backward movement of the stern than did the previous experiment. The reason
is that the water will turn the blades for you if your fingers are quick and
light on the handle. If, as a Zen aphorism puts it, “You think that what you
do not do yourself does not happen,” you will fail to make use of a valuable
ally, the water itself. A reminder: any movement of the wrist slows the
entry of the blade, allowing the boat to move backward.

The gestures involved in moving a boat are extremely subtle. To make them
with the most economy of movement and effort, depend on what you feel and
hear. The transitions at each end of the slide have to be so smooth as to
deceive the eye, and accompanied by a spontaneous, quick movement of the
blade. —Frank Cunningham, “The Sculler at Ease,” p. 66

[John Greenly]

On Sunday, November 9, 2014 3:45:26 PM UTC-5, Charles Carroll wrote:

> My own observation is that in rough water I have found a sculler's catch
> very serviceable.
>
> Cordially,
>
> Charles

Hi Charles, I'm wondering how you use this on rough water. I need to keep the blades higher off the water when it's rough to keep from hitting waves on the recovery, so it's no problem to square them as they start down toward the water surface. As Carl has pointed out, getting them moving downward before they hit the surface makes for quicker burying too. I don't see why lowering them to the surface while still feathered and then squaring them in the water would be good.

Cheers,
John

[Charles Carroll]

> > … in rough water I have found a Sculler’s
> > Catch quite serviceable

> >
> I'm wondering how you use this on rough water.
> I need to keep the blades higher off the water
> when it's rough to keep from hitting waves on
> the recovery, so it's no problem to square them
> as they start down toward the water surface

Hi John,

In rough water I frequently find myself feathering very close to the water,
and sometimes even on the water. Truth to tell, I am such a poor sculler
that many times in rough water I am just glad to stay in the boat.

But setting aside my feeble attempts at humor, I often have a recurring
dream of sculling with perfect rhythm, knifing straight through feverishly
dancing ripples and high rollers, crashing through whitecaps, my bowball
moving at an ever constant velocity. But alas such dreams have so far
remained unattainable.

I don’t think the dream is impossible. Better scullers I am sure can do it.
I, however, just don’t happen to be among them.

But returning to your point, I find myself frequently hitting the waves on
the recovery, and there doesn’t seem to be much I can do about that. My
hands are as low as I can get them.

I have tried raising the oarlocks, but this didn’t work. To bury the blades
properly I was forced to raise my hands to an uncomfortable height with the
result that I bring the handles way too high into my sternum.

I suppose I could raise my seat, but wouldn’t this also raise my center of
gravity and change the righting arm?

Carl’s shell is set up for flat water. I love the way it is rigged and I am
loath to do anything to change it.

But the last thing is the wind. I learned — I guess my first month
sculling — what a force wind can be. It must have been in February and I was
sculling in serious wind and trying to get back to the dock. I wasn’t doing
too badly until it was time to turn scull directly into the wind. I turned
and then, as I had been taught, squared my blades right after the crossover
and started to move into the stern. But before I could get into the catch
position, the wind caught the blades. The surprising then is that the wind
just didn’t stop me — it actually started me moving sternwards.

The lesson I took from this is square as late as possible. It is a lesson
that seems to have served me well. It always brings to mind — my mind,
anyways — Frank Cunningham’s last piece of advice:

“The gestures involved in [employing a sculler’s catch to move] a boat are

extremely subtle. To make them with the most economy of movement and effort,
depend on what you feel and hear. The transitions at each end of the slide
have to be so smooth as to deceive the eye, and accompanied by a

spontaneous, quick movement of the blade.”

It is all in a loose grip with only your fingers holding the oar handles.
And it is magic. And I don’t mean magic in a supernatural sense. I mean
magic in the sense of quick-fingeredness, or sleight of hand.
Prestidigitation! A quickness that deceives the eye! And there is nothing
supernatural about that.

For many years Carl has been saying that getting the blades moving downwards
before they hit the surface makes for quicker burying. I think, unless I
have completely misunderstood Frank Cunningham, that Cunningham also thinks
this.

But isn’t Cunningham’s argument a little different. It seems to me that
Cunningham is saying that “getting the blades moving downwards before they
hit the surface” produces more boat check; and that the resultant check is
more damaging than a slightly slower blade entry with less check?

Cordially,

Charles

[wmar...@gmail.com]

Different thread, same stitchers...
Sweep or scull I like to coach people to carry blades high enough off the water that they could be squared. Leaves quite a lot of space under the blades for light choppy water, allows person to roll square in the last moment of the recovery, and make contact with a square blade, that only became square at the at the last moment before entry... The balance skills take a while, largely because most of us learn to scull initially by dragging our blades, and then having to lift them off the water to square without gouging the water before entry (unless we do the Frank Reid-type catch that seems to be called the sculler's catch, which I think is impractical with today's blade shapes).
The person who coached me in my short sculling "career" has coached a lot of people who have represented Canada internationally, over the years - he was a member of two Olympic silver medal M8+, a mechanical engineer, used the "sculler's catch" and said "Do as I say, not as I do" when talking about the catch...

[Charles Carroll]

John,

I want to change the last two paragraphs in the previous post:

For many years Carl has argued that getting the blades moving downwards
before they hit the surface makes for quicker burying. I wonder if Frank
Cunningham would disagree with this. My guess is he wouldn’t.

But isn’t Cunningham’s argument a little different?

It seems to me that Cunningham is saying that “getting the blades moving

downwards before they hit the surface” produces boat check; and that the

resultant check is more damaging than a slightly slower blade entry with

less check.

I also apologize for all the typos in the previous post, which I should have
reread it before sending it.

Warmest regards

Charles

[sully]

On Sunday, November 9, 2014 12:45:26 PM UTC-8, Charles Carroll wrote:
> > The catches that you put on the title of the thread
> > are atrocious. These are catches beginner scullers
> > can execute by themselves. Take a stroke, stop
> > the vid at the stern most reach, then stop it again
> > when the blade is buried. A solid foot.
>
> Mike,
>
> Agreed! The demonstration is not exactly perfect.

hmm.. Who was the sculler's catch you put up here a couple months ago?

Was it Mahe? We had a bit of discussion about it. THAT catch was not
exactly perfect, but I claimed it's about as good as you can get, particularly since he was at racing cadence.

There's an expected waste at both the catch and finish during entry/extraction, as there is a discrete amount of time between when the blade first strikes the water and when the blade is fully buried and loaded. We've already shown in that video that while the blade is in the act of burying, it is beginning to load as the moment of blade tip striking the water should mark the end of the recovery, and during the partial second it takes to bury, you are on the drive.

In the scullers catch, where the act of pulling squares the blade, I claim that the instant from blade first touching water and being fully loaded is much longer.

Frank's demonstration illustrates this big time.

Further, when you look at vids of 50s and 60s era crews rowing, even the "pocock trained" crews, they square before entry. KC was coached that way by Duvall Hecht and by the time they raced they didn't employ it either.

I think the narrower standard oars may be more effective with this flip catch.

The irony that I pointed out, is that in the narrative about the hands that Frank makes with the apes, it highlights my criticism of the early part of the vid where he grips the oar throughout the cycle.

The catch is the most difficult part of the stroke to learn, and hard to teach.





As was stated earlier, scullers I saw in the 70s and 80s who were coached by Frank did NOT row like Frank explains with the scullers catch.

[John Greenly]

Hi Charles,

Seems to me that what produces check is an incorrect horizontal component of blade motion, not the vertical component. You can move the blade downward as fast as you want and it won't produce any check as long as it is also moving appropriately sternward to match its motion to the water flowing past the hull. So you're moving the blade at an angle downward and sternward, and the faster the vertical component, the steeper the angle. You'll always get the blade buried and working sooner, and waste less motion "rowing it in," by making that vertical component as quick as possible. That's just geometry, nothing profound.

I've never read Cunningham, and that video makes no sense to me, so I'll leave that controversy to others.

Cheers,
John

[sully]

I generally state that is "there's ALWAYS check, the idea is to minimize it".

[John Greenly]

Hi Sully, in the real world you know far better than i do, I'm sure you're right. In fact, I always wonder if maybe a little bit of check- backsplash- on the way in is actually good, because it will make sure that water is against the back side of the blade as it goes in, rather than pulling in entrained air. That little bit of check might be worth the cost.

Cheers,
John

[Charles Carroll]

Hi John,

It seems to me that it has been long-established, leastwise on RSR, that in
the real world it is impossible to eliminate boat check. But while we can’t
eliminate it, we can reduce it.

It also seems to me that reduction of boat check is the reason Frank
Cunningham advocates a sculler’s catch over a more conventional square blade
entry.

Cunningham is a giant in our sport and “The Sculler at Ease” is well worth
reading. But you don’t have to read the book to understand Cunningham’s
argument in support of a sculler’s catch. My concern with this issue is not
to argue for a sculler’s catch over square blade entry, or the reverse.
Rather I am only trying to understand what Frank Cunningham is saying. I
want to be clear about why he thinks a sculler’s catch is superior to square
blade entry.

It was Ric Ricci who wanted me to revisit Frank Cunningham’s ideas about the
sculler’s catch. Interestingly enough Ric also wanted me to study the video
of Katrin Rutschow-Stomporowski’s taking gold in the Women’s Single Sculls
in Athens at the 2004 Olympics. I have had several learned coaches say that
this is the finest example of sculling that they have ever seen. Xeno even
has a comment on YouTube saying this.

I have to confess that I have very casually looked at this video a number of
time over the last two years; and that while I have admired Katrin
Rutschow-Stomporowski’s taking gold, I have never actually appreciated her
sculling.

Finally, this weekend, I tried to see the video through Ric Ricci’s eyes;
and I now have some thoughts about what Ric finds so admirable in Katrin
Rutschow-Stomporowski’s sculling. And I guess I have to concede that I
myself also find her sculling nothing short of fantastic.

It begins with Steve Fairbairn’s idea of no showy movements. There is
nothing meretricious, nothing exaggerated about Katrin Rutschow-Stomporowski’s
sculling. It is pure economy of motion. She sits up high, arms legs and
trunk finish together. She is smooth and relaxed on the recovery, and smooth
and relaxed during blade entry. And what’s more, she is always on time.
Perfect timing!

Now consider her blade work. Does Katrin Rutschow-Stomporowski use a sculler’s
catch? Not to my eye! She rolls her blades square and places them in the
water with very little, if any, disturbance.

So it seems that Ric is advising me to study two different, opposite ways of
taking the catch. I wonder what I should make of that.

Cordially,

Charles

Ps. the video link to Katrin Rutschow-Stomporowski’s at the 2004 Olympics:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NaUTFmLbvJM

[sully]

First, don't grant me superior powers of observation than yourself! The practiced eye can be most often deceived seeing what he WANTS to see and not what is really happening. This has been one of my long credos here, when we look at vids, look critically at what we see and what we think is happening and don't be colored by the stature and reputation of the rower in question!

Furthermore, we coaches will employ models and parables in our teaching to get our charges to row in such a way that the terms we use can tend to distort the reality of what's really happening.


John, that check part makes no sense to me, the check doesn't come from the blade entry, the check comes from the boat picking up the body mass as you change direction, To minimize check, you want as much of the blade covered and loaded with as little drive used as possible.

There was comment made about 'letting the blade drop' and how it makes the entry too slow. There are two components of the end of the recovery, the blade gets gravity assist from being off the water, AND it has momentum to bow from the recovery. I teach 'hand lift" not so much to drive the blade in quickly, but to get hands out of the way to allow the blade to use all of it's momentum and weight to enter quickly, the hands keep enough contact to keep the blade vertical (takes very little), and to be able to instantaneously hook.

The really REALLY difficult part is what to do between the time the blade tip first touches the water and the blade being fully immersed.

The Mahe clip VERY nicely demos that the blade is being loaded as it's entering, that happens very quickly as Mahe begins his drive with the hips.
My thesis at this point is that just like there is time in blade entry, there is time involved in direction change on the slide. The legs don't fire full strength immediately, the nervous system is recruiting those fibers. Other strategies are to open the body slightly to load, or to hook the arms or lats initially to begin that load. that's another discussion, and I think if you get loaded quick with the minimal check possible, the method of that loading isn't such a big deal as long as it leads to excellent connection from feet to blade on the drive.

[John Greenly]

Hi Charles,

I'm trying, but I don't understand arguments for this sculler's catch. I can't see any reason to think that Cunningham's catch should be better in terms of check than a square-blade catch, and I certainly agree with Sully that it will waste more motion than a good square-blade catch. But, mainly, in all the videos of elite scullers I have studied, I have never seen anyone scull that way! That Athens W1x video has always been one of my favorites, and Katrin R-S is one of my sculling idols. But look at all the others too, they all square the blades above the water and use a super-quick, nearly vertical lift of the handles to drive the blades in, so quick it is hard to see in detail.

Seems to me the vote is in where it counts, at the highest level of competition, and nobody appears to vote for the "sculler's catch" in any race video I have studied. I guess that's why I have not been in a hurry to read Cunningham's book, though quotes like the orangutan thing, which I can't make any sense of, don't inspire me much either. Now I have probably made lots of enemies, because clearly Cunningham is a very important and positive figure in US rowing history, of which I am inexcusably ignorant. It's probably because I started sculling as an old guy, I never had the collegiate crew experience, never learned about the revered coaching figures of the sport. I'm certainly not proud of that ignorance, and am trying here on RSR to learn. So I should read Cunningham's book.

By the way, you probably have seen this already, shows some very good video of Katrin's technique, among others:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jdLRZgPJGhs&list=PLgrZVO6vLXHaJ-bb-wUw4ICdgzCwIHG9v&index=4


Cheers,
John

[John Greenly]

On Monday, November 10, 2014 7:51:50 PM UTC-5, sully wrote:
> John, that check part makes no sense to me, the check doesn't come from the blade entry, the check comes from the boat picking up the body mass as you change direction, To minimize check, you want as much of the blade covered and loaded with as little drive used as possible.

Yes, exactly, totally agreed, and that's a great way to say it.
Oops, sorry Sully, I used the word check wrong. I was trying to understand Charles's comment:

>"getting the blades moving downwards before they hit the surface" produces boat check; and that the resultant check is more damaging than a slightly slower blade entry with
less check.

...which I didn't understand right, I thought he was talking about blades making backsplash entering the water and making an impulse in the wrong direction. And I still can't figure why a slower entry should necessarily produce either less backsplash or less boat check, or why a faster one, starting downward before hitting the surface, should produce worse check or backsplash, as long as the motion is correct to load the blades as fast as possible, as you nicely describe in Mahe's technique.

Probably I am guilty of the same kind of exaggerated language that some coaches use to make a point, when I talked about "driving" the blades in with that quick hand lift. Your description is much better. That's why you're a very fine coach, and I'm not.

By the way, I've been meaning to say for a long time that your Release-high-pause-and-let-the-boat-fall drill (is there a short name for it?) that you first recommended to me here last year when I was getting started in my racing 1X has been the best single piece of information I have ever had about rowing. It changed everything for me after about 50 miles or so, and it especially improved my open-water rowing in my Maas Flyweight. I still do it whenever I start feeling un-relaxed. I hope I can do the Blackburn next year, I bet I could be 10-15 minutes faster than before if I can get back into as good condition. This fall I thought about that when I was out in the X25 on the lake and realized that I was rowing hard and fast, and relaxed and very happy too, in conditions rough enough that two years ago would have slowed me down in the Flyweight. I thought "Wow, thanks, Sully!" but then forgot to post it afterwards.

Here's a question for you. This year I found myself using the feel of the seat motion as an indicator of the connection as the blades are loaded. It seemed to me that if the seat feels like it moves easily the first couple of inches away from frontstops, that means i haven't gotten the blades in and loaded and made a strong connection through my shoulders and back. But if the seat feels as if it doesn't want to move right from the start of leg drive, if there's instant, steady resistance, then it's telling me that I have made that connection. Does that seem like a good diagnostic test?

Cheers-- and thanks,
John

[Carol Dailey]

John:

Can you describe the actual drill? I'd love to hear more about it. I'm off to row :>

Cat

[sully]

On Monday, November 10, 2014 11:17:51 AM UTC-8, Charles Carroll wrote:
> Hi John,
>
> It seems to me that it has been long-established, leastwise on RSR, that in
> the real world it is impossible to eliminate boat check. But while we can't
> eliminate it, we can reduce it.
>
> It also seems to me that reduction of boat check is the reason Frank
> Cunningham advocates a sculler's catch over a more conventional square blade
> entry.
>
> Cunningham is a giant in our sport and "The Sculler at Ease" is well worth
> reading. But you don't have to read the book to understand Cunningham's
> argument in support of a sculler's catch. My concern with this issue is not
> to argue for a sculler's catch over square blade entry, or the reverse.
> Rather I am only trying to understand what Frank Cunningham is saying. I
> want to be clear about why he thinks a sculler's catch is superior to square
> blade entry.
>

It's the way they learned. Keep in mind Frank and the Pocock's audience.
Crews like my early years were just slaughtering strokes, I think I mentioned how bad we were slamming around at a 40. The UDub crews of the day weren't 'coached' that much, they were taught to row by frosh coach, then went out and raced every day, the best athletes figured it out.

When athletes from that era went to learn to scull, getting any sort of technical attention to get them to relax more, to feel the boat, etc, was a revelation in itself.

It helped a lot, but it's not like any of them adopted the flip catch.

They did learn to relax a lot more, and be more conscious of the ends of the strokes and not just hammer.

So if you've been in an eight for four years slamming and bamming, and jump into a single, the sculling is a horrendous mess. When you apply the same principles in that single that you employed in your battalion pocock eight with the other 7 behemouths, the single goes backward or upside down.

A coach who comes along and gives any sort of structure and discipline to the approaches to releasing and catching is going to achieve really good results.
Frank's approach is consistent, it's very structured and disciplined.

So to answer your question, the reason Frank, and Stan, and Conn, Duvall and others think that the flip catch (scullers catch) is a superior catch to the square entry is because that's how they rowed, they won medals in the Olys when they rowed like that (which in practice they really didn't!), and they observed some pretty horrendously rowing college crews here in the states, especially some fast ones with excellent athletes in them.

In a discussion with Conn over this a couple years ago, he very strongly disagreed to one of my approaches to teaching novice scullers. I teach them pretty early on to release high (nothing at all on finishes) but the concept of release high, relax, let the boat fall if it will. Emphasis on relax.

Conn insists that beginners should row with their oars on the water, then as the blade work improves, the oars start coming off.

He asserts that it keeps the rowers more relaxed and the ends of the stroke more smooth. Not fair for me to try to characterize his argument, but the differences are fairly profound, yet the ends are the same.

With first day scullers who are struggling, I have them stop every stroke and rest for a moment with oars flat, in a comfortable position, and take one stroke at a time, row, stop.... row, stop... and make sure there is one place in the stroke cycle where the oar is properly seated in the lock, and hands are relaxed, even if the rest of the stroke they squeeze the rubber off the grips!

So I see Conn's point, for some scullers I employ it, but not after they've rowed a couple days, and most ppl don't need it.

The value I get from his book is the completeness of it, the overall approach to a discipline of good technique and feel, and that mean/tough guys can get results from a little more sensitivity and gentleness to the stroke cycle.

[sully]

I think I've said before that employing the release technique can be self taught because the feedback from the boat is so positive when you get it right, or get it even wrong in the correct direction! You can have a washy finish but if they are symmetric in depth/power, then when you release, the boat balances on it's own as I've described. So you don't need great finishes to row your boat well in any conditions, good finishes help them be more consistently symmetrical.

The catch is a whole 'nuther animal! The feedbacks from the boat often are very negative when you are mechanically doing (mostly) the correct thing. the timing can be off a hair, and the catch can look much better but feel chattery and decidedly NOT connected!

AND, learning the catch requires a solid discipline in the recovery, I believe you have to be well patterned in the recovery, largely in ensuring that the last foot of compression is just compression and hand separation, no more body or arm reach... That takes some work!

Believe me, some athletes catch very well without it, amazing what athleticism, focus, and miles will do! My best friend never learned correctly, he's an Oly silver! Boy it pisses him off when I tell him that over a beer.

I do use the seat/hips in my instruction, AND I use them as a self-diagnostic once you've learned the catch motion, the basic idea being eyes closed and paying attention to two things: The blade touching the water at catch, and butt changing direction. What comes first?

Eyes closed really helps focusing on that. Do for 10 strokes at at time.

Stable boat, square blade rowing, maybe a pause 1/4 slide during recovery to get body properly prepared helps cut down some extra factors as well, but eyes closed really gets you to feel the timing of those two actions.

When I have taught the catch, I then show the diagnostic so ppl can be rowing and self-critique their catch timing.

[John Greenly]

Hi Cat,

Even better, Sully described it to you himself- in his post (the fourth post from the top) on your "advice" thread.

John

[John Greenly]

On Tuesday, November 11, 2014 1:40:08 PM UTC-5, sully wrote:

> I think I've said before that employing the release technique can be self taught because the feedback from the boat is so positive when you get it right, or get it even wrong in the correct direction! You can have a washy finish but if they are symmetric in depth/power, then when you release, the boat balances on it's own as I've described. So you don't need great finishes to row your boat well in any conditions, good finishes help them be more consistently symmetrical.
>
> The catch is a whole 'nuther animal! The feedbacks from the boat often are very negative when you are mechanically doing (mostly) the correct thing. the timing can be off a hair, and the catch can look much better but feel chattery and decidedly NOT connected!
>
> AND, learning the catch requires a solid discipline in the recovery, I believe you have to be well patterned in the recovery, largely in ensuring that the last foot of compression is just compression and hand separation, no more body or arm reach... That takes some work!
>
> Believe me, some athletes catch very well without it, amazing what athleticism, focus, and miles will do! My best friend never learned correctly, he's an Oly silver! Boy it pisses him off when I tell him that over a beer.
>
> I do use the seat/hips in my instruction, AND I use them as a self-diagnostic once you've learned the catch motion, the basic idea being eyes closed and paying attention to two things: The blade touching the water at catch, and butt changing direction. What comes first?
>
> Eyes closed really helps focusing on that. Do for 10 strokes at at time.
>
> Stable boat, square blade rowing, maybe a pause 1/4 slide during recovery to get body properly prepared helps cut down some extra factors as well, but eyes closed really gets you to feel the timing of those two actions.
>
> When I have taught the catch, I then show the diagnostic so ppl can be rowing and self-critique their catch timing.

Great, thanks for this!

I definitely am most consistent with the high-release/fall drill when I keep a good strong pull all the way into the finish and keep the blades buried as long as I can, that sets the boat the best.

Yes, I didn't begin to feel the seat as a good diagnostic until I got that last foot of compression consistently disciplined- as you say, no more body or arm reach then! For a long time I had been reaching out with arms/shoulders/body a last extra bit just before the catch, and I had to break that habit. That did take some work!

I have to be careful about rowing with eyes closed. I really love to do that and it helps a lot as you say, but I get into it and several times have come awfully close to making an unintentional amphibious assault on the shore during my blind meditation on the stroke. I really need a coach to yell at me to snap out of it!

You know, someday I might even learn enough to try a bit of teaching myself. We have a learn-to-sail program in the summer at our town park on the lake, and I've been thinking of donating an old Alden ocean shell I have and seeing if I could scare up one or two more, and start a sculling for beginners program there. That would really be nice, to hook a few more people on rowing!
The Cascadilla boat club in Ithaca does beginners programs oriented toward racing shells down on the Cayuga inlet (river-like), but I think there are people who would really like to try open-water rowing out on the lake in wider, stable boats.

Thanks!
John

[sully]

I expect you'd be an excellent sculling teacher.

Many ppl think they can't teach sculling because:
"I'm a terrible rower, I've never competed at a high level in rowing, I'm not very fast."

Some of the greatest coaches in the history of the sport rowed not at all, minimially, terribly, or coxed.

[Charles Carroll]

> quotes like the orangutan thing, which I can't make any sense of

Hi John,

I was very glad to read your comments on Frank Cunningham’s Orangutans. I
have never particularly cared for the passage myself. I don’t know why
Cunningham couldn’t have just said that the importance of a loose grip
cannot be overestimated.

In any event, I have done what Ric recommended I do. I have reexamined my
thoughts on Cunningham’s sculler’s catch and have come to the same
conclusion I always come to. You, Sully, and Carl have been particularly
helpful in this endeavor.

It seems to me that Mike Sullivan summed it up best in an earlier post when
he described “the sculler’s catch” as “a novice’s catch.” I have to agree
with Sully. It is a catch people use when they don’t have the confidence to
keep their blades off the water. It is just that simple.

I have been reading Steve Fairbairn and am going to quote a passage from
him. In the passage Fairbairn has maybe the best description I have read of
a proper catch. Or let me put it this way, the best description I know of.
Of course this is just an opinion, and we all know that opinions are not
necessarily knowledge.

Warmest regards,

Charles

————/
The latest of these false movements is what is called the “Back Splash ”.
That is, the oarsmen are now being taught to splash water, just before
getting in, on to the bow canvas. This idea arose from an old saying, “A wet
bow canvas means a fast boat.” That is quite true. But not as the result of
brilliant oarsmen every now and again just flicking the water with the
bottom of the blade with lightning rapidity and spraying the bow canvas. It
is the eccentricity of genius, and happens when the brilliant oarsman has
turned the blade square just too near the water and so flicks some up. The
oar must be held balanced on the sill of the rowlock, and feathered the
whole of the forward swing, and then the oarsman, when fully extended, turns
the blade with an outward and upward movement of the hands, till it is
square, then he rows it into the water with an upward and backward movement
of the hands. This is done in a flash, and the weight of the oar is
transferred instantaneously from the sill to the rowing-pin, and the blade
is rowed into the water with a rounded movement. Of course the idea of the
Back Splash is to get the blade into the water at full reach. That is also
the idea of “drop the blade in,” trying to row the blade the full distance
of the reach. The “Back Splash” is apparently trying to row the blade more
than this distance. There is a principle in all machinery that there must be
a loss at every turn. The stroke is begun in the air, and then, and only
then, can he propel as the blade enters the water, because the blade must be
travelling faster than the boat is passing the water to propel. (Steve
Fairbairn, “Rowing Notes,” Preface to the Third Edition, 1930)

[Charles Carroll]

Sorry. I should have just quoted Fairbairn’s description of a good catch and
left it at that. When will I ever learn the value of “Keep it simple,
stupid?”

Fairbairn writes: "The oar must be held balanced on the sill of the rowlock,

and feathered the whole of the forward swing, and then the oarsman, when
fully extended, turns the blade with an outward and upward movement of the
hands, till it is square, then he rows it into the water with an upward and
backward movement of the hands. This is done in a flash, and the weight of
the oar is transferred instantaneously from the sill to the rowing-pin, and
the blade is rowed into the water with a rounded movement."

[sully]

On Friday, November 14, 2014 11:19:20 AM UTC-8, Charles Carroll wrote:
> Sorry. I should have just quoted Fairbairn's description of a good catch and
> left it at that. When will I ever learn the value of "Keep it simple,
> stupid?"
>
> Fairbairn writes: "The oar must be held balanced on the sill of the rowlock,
> and feathered the whole of the forward swing, and then the oarsman, when
> fully extended, turns the blade with an outward and upward movement of the
> hands, till it is square, then he rows it into the water with an upward and
> backward movement of the hands. This is done in a flash, and the weight of
> the oar is transferred instantaneously from the sill to the rowing-pin, and
> the blade is rowed into the water with a rounded movement."
>

Not too bad, Steve, dang I wish I could be as economical word-wise. But this is where the complication comes in trying to describe what's really happening vs coaching the sculler to do it!

The blade movement toward bow happens until the blade tip touches the water,
that moment should be the apex of the "rounded movement".

Nearly everybody has a rounded movement at the catch, but the vast majority of scullers have the blade either stopped relative to the boat (fore/aft) or moving sternwards before touching the water with the blade tip.

[sully]

Very interesting comment from Conn today about the "Scullers catch", and related to what has been said about the scullers catch and rough water.

Conn said that the scullers catch 'misses water' from the moment the blade touches until it's locked, that many of us on this thread agreed. I didn't follow up, but he admitted that. He also said that at the start line at Tokyo,
the water was really really rough, especially in their lane. He, Ed, and Kent discussed how to take the start. Ed suggested because the water was so rough, they'd be missing a lot of water, being really wasteful by chopping it out too high. Conn's response was that their catches would be LESS wasteful than their competitors, that while they'd be missing some, when they had contact with the water at the catch, the misses would be a lot closer, where their opponents misses would be much more dramatic. Off high they went.

[tjhco...@googlemail.com]

More from Fairbairn on this:

""Rowing the blade in" is another source of disagreement. The orthodox people say it is a waste to row any part of the stroke in the air, and, to check it, they coach to get the blade in before the power comes on; they say, "Drop the oar in," thereby giving an initial backwatering movement, and then a dull, blood-vessel-bursting drag instead of the springy punch that one wants. However much an oarsman tries to carry out such advice, his subjective mind instinctively takes possession of the situation and introduces the hit. There must be a hit of the blade to catch the water. The water is moving and the machinery of the body is moving through one cycle after another. The motion of the stroke must be started before the weight comes on, to overtake the running water and to get the body "stretched" before the hit. But, of course, one must not make a parrot-cry of "Rowing the blade in," nor think the object of rowing is to smack the blade down on the water."

While I do love the Fairbairn philosophy... I find that this article by Valery Kleshnev and Tim Baker is much closer to my experience of a 'good' catch.

http://highperformancerowing.net/journal/2011/8/4/understanding-rowing-technique-the-timing-of-the-catch.html

N.B. The article talks about the blade travelling slower/faster than the water - this is from the point of reference of the rower sat in the boat with the water travelling past them. i.e. if it says "the blade is travelling slower than the water" it means that the spoon is going towards the stern more slowly than the water is".

TC

[Charles Carroll]

> N.B. The article talks about the blade

> travelling slower/faster than the water –

> this is from the point of reference of the
> rower sat in the boat with the water
> travelling past them. i.e. if it says
> "the blade is travelling slower than
> the water" it means that the spoon
> is going towards the stern more
> slowly than the water is".

Tom,

Who would not appreciate Dr. Valery Kleshnev and Tim Baker’s very
interesting article, “Understanding Rowing Technique — The Timing of the
Catch?” I cannot thank you enough for posting the link. Of course the
article inspired a few questions.

The first question that popped into my mind is what would Steve Fairbairn
disagree with in Kleshnev and Baker’s article? I am having trouble finding
anything that I think Fairbairn would dispute. Kleshnev and Baker’s key
points seem completely in accord with Fairbairn’s thinking.

“The splash towards the bow is not the thing to aim for. You are aiming to
get the blade in as soon as is possible, which is done by practice and ‘feel’.
This (very small) splash is a consequence, not the desired effect.

“The blade should never touch the water on the way forward (case 1).

“The blade should never touch the water when it has reached its furthest
forward (case 2).

“What we are talking about here is placing the blade after it has changed
direction and started to move towards the stern. The blade is almost matched
to the speed of the water before first touch and the mismatch only occurs
for a few 1/100ths of a second.”

Maybe Fairbairn might have had trouble with the very small splash bowards
during blade entry. I think “maybe” because it seems to me that Kleshnev and
Baker make their case very well.

If I have understood them, Kleshnev and Baker make three simple
observations:

(1) If the blade, when placed, is going towards the stern faster than the
water, then the result is slip.

(2) If the blade is going towards the stern slower than the water, then the
result is check.

(3) If placed correctly, the speed of the blade going towards the stern
should match the speed of the water going towards the stern when the blade
is 50 per cent covered.

And from this they conclude that during the initial phase of blade entry,
when the blade is less than 50 per cent covered, check is preferred to slip
because “it only occurs for a very small time (3-4/100ths of a second)” and
the negative force it produces is minimal.

Thanks again for the article. It has certainly given me things to think
about and try.

Warmest regards,

Charles


---
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[Carl]

May I clarify this point about blade speed WRT the water, Charles?

At the catch, & without backwatering, the blade is actually moving
_forwards_ WRT the water, & quite rapidly so. This is a relatively
straightforward matter of geometry, but can be counter-intuitively vexing.

In reality the blade is moving end-on through the water along initially
a diagonal path angles some 30 degrees to the axis of the boat's motion.
Its rate of rotation at that stage of the stroke will be pretty much
the same whether or not you load it with might & main, & can never be
enough to cause it to move through the water in a sternwards direction.

It may help in visualisation to replace the blade with a long thin
miniature boat. Hold this with its bow pointing at 30 degrees to the
direction of your motion & drop it into the water. With milliseconds
(after a big splash) it will be moving through the water at that same 30
degrees to your own boat, & it will be moving bows first.

It's the same for your blade.

In the stalled mid-stroke phase the blade does start to move astern,
stirring up the water in the process to generate the classic puddle
(which is a big waster of energy).

But as you pass that region & approach the finish the blade is once more
moving through the water towards the finish of your course, as well as
moving inwards towards the boat.

Another analogy:
The rig of a high-performance sailboat almost never moves before the
wind, & may be carving forwards into the headwind at close to 3 times
the oncoming wind's velocity. How can that be? Well, it's all down to
fluid-dynamic lift.

The sail is angled slightly across the wind & the lift force (which acts
roughly perpendicular to the chord or plane of the sail) is therefore
angled a little (but not a lot) towards the bow. Without a keel (or
similar underwater foil system), the boat would then simply blow
sideways like a feather on a pond. But the small amount of leeway
actually allowed by the keel means that it is acting almost as a mirror
(in the water) of the sail, with underwater lift forces acting sideways
but slightly towards the intended direction of sailing.

So you have 2 large forces acting to left & right, with relatively much
smaller residual forces acting in the intended direction of motion. And
that behaves rather like your fingers & palm when you squeeze a bar of
wet soap. The slight tapering of the soap & its good lubrication allow
your hand to close, while a small proportion of the force you are
applying is directed forwards by the taper of the soap, shooting the bar
from your hand at speed.

Enough to ponder?

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

[Carl]

On 07/11/2014 01:29, Charles Carroll wrote:
> Dear all,
>
> I had a lesson with Ric Ricci Tuesday. Ric thought it would be a good
> idea if I “revisited Frank Cunningham’s idea of the Sculler’s Catch.”
>
> So I had about 5 minutes this morning, used it to Google “Sculler’s
> Catch,” and found the following video, which was made in 1972 by Frank
> Cunningham and Stan Pocock.
>
> A demonstration of the “Sculler’s Catch” begins about 3 minutes into the
> video. It looks exactly the way Frank Cunningham describes it in “The
> Sculler at Ease,” p. 66 in my edition.
>
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4pxeBp1X9Q
>
> Cordially,
>
> Charles

Developing from what I posted the other day in response to a much later
contribution of yours, Charles:

In the section from 3 to 4 minutes into the Cunningham video you'll see,
as the boat starts from stationary, that on the first stroke the blade
does indeed move astern through the water after the catch. However, as
the boat gains speed with every stroke that sternwards motion pretty
much ceases. So we really aren't catching at the speed of the water,
not even remotely so.

This is fortunate because it is only due to the speed of rotation of the
oar around the pin at the well-forward catch position being really
_slow_ that we can make clean & effective catches. Yes, we can still
get it wrong & backwater the blade, but at the low hand speed needed at
the catch it is relatively easy to get this right.

What is not understood, in the main, is that the principal direction of
movement of the blade WRT to water at the catch is not astern but is at
a relatively shallow diagonal running along the blade from its lower,
outermost corner towards some point well back from there at the upper
edge of the blade. I realise that having to see it in that way may do
brain damage to the best of us, but the facts are the facts!

That we are taught in simplistic terms when we start rowing is a
necessary evil for the novice. But we ought to learn by observation
that the stroke is a very 3-dimensional process in which what we seem to
see when sitting on a moving shell is in so many ways fundamentally
different from what actually happens.

Similarly but on a different topic: at the start of that video we see
that there is no tap-down at the finish.

Funny old sport, isn't it?

[John Greenly]

This is great, Carl!

I'm thinking more and more that the primary reason for getting to a catch angle much beyond 60 degrees is in fact to take advantage of the very heavy gearing there, or in other words the relatively slow handle speed as you say, as well as the favorable angle of entry for minimizing backwatering. All that gives us "breathing room", so to speak, to get the blade in and the shaft bent before the oar rotates into the range below about 60 degrees where we can really put on the propulsive power effectively.

That means that for people like me with limited knee range of motion who can't get beyond (or even quite to) 60 degrees, making a really clean catch is more difficult and the entry intrudes more into the really productive part of the arc. That may be a reason for going toward narrower span and shorter inboard length to increase the reachable angular arc, which also of course means shorter outboard length to maintain optimal gearing. But of course as you often have pointed out, shorter outboard reduces blade efficiency, so you can't go too far in that direction. I guess I have to face it. I'm not going to grow another 15 cm, nor are my knees going to start bending further, at my age. I'm going to have to figure out how to get the blade in even quicker than Mahe does (fat chance!!).

Cheers,
John

[Carl]

On 04/12/2014 16:53, John Greenly wrote:
> But of course as you often have pointed out, shorter outboard reduces blade efficiency, so you can't go too far in that direction. I guess I have to face it. I'm not going to grow another 15 cm, nor are my knees going to start bending further, at my age. I'm going to have to figure out how to get the blade in even quicker than Mahe does (fat chance!!).

Did I actually propose that? I'm not sure about that but perhaps I'm in
2 minds & falling between them?

As you know, other pressures kept me out of the other thread on "Blade
efficiency revisited", for which I apologise, and I'm still reluctant to
pick up too many loose ends right now as we are preparing to install
flood-preventative measures here in light of the deplorable fact that
Her Maj's government has fiddled all year & is now promising nothing
meaningful to repair a river which, through years of cynical neglect,
has currently ~60% of the bank-full flow capacity that it had before
idiot politicos decided that dredging was a bad idea.

Still, let's have a small bash?

At no point in the rowing stroke can we ever say that we fully
understand the flow regime. That is because we never have what
fluid-dynamicists like to term "fully-developed flow".

One requirement of this blessed & relatively predictable condition tends
to be that a given flow situation has been stable & invariant for long
enough for (in this case) the water to have flowed a distance of at
least 1 characteristic length, which we might in this case take as being
1 blade-length. Unfortunately, in the 0.1 seconds or so that this might
take at the catch position, the oar will have rotated by at least 10
degrees, its loading will (should) have increased, the velocity along
the blade will have fallen a little & everything about this situation
will, in short, have changed.

That means the classic picture of hydrodynamic lift also flies, at least
partly, out of the window - the water never has time to develop a stably
interacting flow & pressure field before everything changes, inch by
inch & millisecond ditto.

So what happens around the blade can bear only an approximate
relationship to the steady-state flows of which we more normally speak.
But that does not render such concepts irrelevant, IMHO, & if anything
seems likely to put the blade into a role intermediate between that of a
sheet of rigid material slicing edgewise/endwise through a fixed medium
of high density & the more normal picture of evolving streamlines &
curved flows which generate the pressure differences characteristic of
the usual view of 'lift'.

Thus where, on a foil under steady-state conditions, there is little if
any pressure increase over the blade face & your lift force results
predominantly from the pressure reduction across the convex back, I'd
suspect that we would, if we measured it, see rather more face pressure
- & please forgive me if I don't try to put numbers to this or to
analyse further right now.

But what I do not see in any of my hand-waving theorising, nor in any
other more conventional interpretation, reason to doubt the high
propulsive efficiency of the oar at the catch. Nor see I any reason,
other than the apparent severity of the gearing that results, not to go
to rather severe catch angles. Of course, I fully appreciate that worn
knee joints can provide a powerful disincentive - and Jan, in her
miraculous semi-recovery after having just had both her knees injected
with cortisone over the last few weeks, is my own in-house
example-in-reverse of just how disabling having bad knees can be.

The fastest sailboat we ever built was a wing-sailed C-Class cat, with
solid, split-flap wing of laminar-flow profile & forward-raked
dagger-boards (to reduce aeration-induced stall). This boat, though
unsuccessful in its challenge due solely to lack of sailing time (due to
inadequate fund-raising by the sailors & our refusal to let it leave the
shop before payment). This boat could reach at least 2x wind speed when
tacking into the wind - & it didn't have the lifting foils of the AC72s.
It's knowing something of this that encouraged me to digress slightly
into the counter-intuitive area of high performance sailing at low
angles of attack with my simple explanation of how some close-hauled
yachts can achieve such speeds.

While the gearing is severe, & that does give you the slower movement
which provides a bit more time to get the blade loaded after the entry,
I would strongly argue that this early part of the stroke is a region of
very low losses which all rowers would do well to exploit. How to
exploit it? Reach long & get the load on fast. And when sculling do
the loading up early by squeezing hands together with your pectorals
(the hands are after all moving more towards each other than towards the
bow at that point) & do so _before_ you apply any serious load to the
stretcher.

Enough! Gotta go!

[John Greenly]

On Thursday, December 4, 2014 4:00:18 PM UTC-5, Carl wrote:
> Thus where, on a foil under steady-state conditions, there is little if
> any pressure increase over the blade face & your lift force results
> predominantly from the pressure reduction across the convex back, I'd
> suspect that we would, if we measured it, see rather more face pressure
> - & please forgive me if I don't try to put numbers to this or to
> analyse further right now.

Hi Carl, many thanks for your post, just a quick note on this one point for the moment. I think you're right about this. I've been playing with some simple steady-flow airfoil simulations to try to develop some feel for the distribution of forces.

For thin, curved foils like our blades, but in steady flow and with higher aspect-ratio than ours, at low angle of attack the lift comes mostly from the back-side pressure reduction, but at the higher angles of attack characteristic of heavily-loaded oar blades the force comes probably less than 60% from the pressure reduction on the back surface, and >40%from the front face.

For a number of reasons I think this 60:40 proportion would be still lower for real blades in transient flow, and the front-face contribution could indeed be larger than the back through most of the stroke except possibly at the highest speed and lowest angle of attack that occur right near the catch. It would be very helpful if Mr. Sliasas or someone else doing variable-flow simulations would publish these numbers. I have seen his plots with color-coded pressure fields, but it's impossible to derive integrated face forces by looking at those.

If you haven't mentioned lower efficiency of shorter oars, I apologize for putting words in your mouth (or in your posts)! But I seem to remember that, and it is correct: the shorter arc through the water of shorter blades means both heavier loading for a given average power, and lower water-across-blade speed as the oar traces out its curved path. Hence, lower efficiency.

Cheers,
John

[rolyb...@googlemail.com]

Carl, and all,

The Northern Rowing (NE England) facebook page had a picture of experimental blades posted on it (7 December by Ken Hastie). Perhaps when the flood risk has passed it would be interesting to know whether you saw these when they were made (in the 80s) and what you think of them?

Roly

[Kit Davies]

First 2 photos here:

https://www.facebook.com/northernrowing/photos_stream

Kit

[Kit Davies]

Sorry.

Ken's comment in the timeline is:

"Here's an interesting couple of photos I took when at the National
Championships Rowshow at Nottingham in the 1980s. F. Collar of Oxford
were well known for manufacturing masts, oars and sculls in timber and
they designed these unique sculling blades which were designed to enable
the sculler to row at a much higher rate and with less impact at the catch.

A few scullers did try them (including George Parsonage, our friend in
Glasgow who had some good things to say about them) but they never
really caught on. They would be a quirky item to put on display if
anyone still had access to them !

Ken Hastie"

[Carl]

And those are exactly the delta-shaped oars to which I have recently
referred.