Bowloader History

[Edward M]

Dear rowers,

I'm currently trying to find out some more about the history of bowloaders. Aside from the interesting threads on this group, many of which are concerned with the safety aspects, there's precious little online about how these boats were conceived, when they were introduced, how (and why -- although this one's fairly obvious) the bowloader eight, of which I've seen pictures, was retired ...

... would anyone happen to have any information on this? I'd be really grateful for anything concrete on this, if only to satisfy my curiosity.

Thanks,

Edward.

[Georg Baum]

The website of the Rüsselsheimer Ruder-Klub claims on http://www.rrk-online.de/allgemein/chronrrk/uebermitgl/gvopel83.htm that it was invented by
Georg von Opel and built for the first time in 1948-1950 in his Opelit boat
yard in Frankfurt/Main. I believe that it was then forgotten for some time,
and re-discovered maybe in the 80s?
This guy must have been quite innovative, the same website also tells about
other experiments, e.g. with sliding riggers.


Georg

[Edward M]

Interesting! There's no way I could have come across that link myself. Thanks!

Regarding whether they were 'rediscovered' in the 1980s, they were certainly in use by the 1982 European Championships: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q9BY6f6BO7E]. I can't find any video of fours from the the 1970s, though, so maybe someone else would be able to help narrow things down? I suppose the Holy Grail would be a video of a multi-lane race where one crew is using a stern-loader and the other a bow-loader, as that would allow us to pinpoint the moment when they were still in the process of being adopted. We've got this with the hatchet blades, after all, in the form of the 1993 Boat Race: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2FRGgcWoPwA]

And as for the sliding riggers, there's also evidence for those at the 1982 Championships: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=faTbr6CZ5SY]. Any idea why these were phased out?

[Carl]

Although the text tells us, quoting from Wikipedia, that the sliding
rigger was a British invention. So there's not much innovation in
playing with a 70-year old invention of.

Interesting, however, to learn that it that it was devised by a Mr James
Pacher. Did he have a brother named Michael, who painted it yellow, I
wonder?

As ever, we see in this final sentence the ill-informed dumbing down of
the intellect & technology of those times:
"Although the idea worked in theory, it could not implemented at the
time due to the available materials."
Of course it could! And what does he mean by "worked in theory"?

Heaven preserve us from the insistence of the inexpert on inventing
reasons to explain history. We see that same tendency in other fields -
thus no major pre-historic structure can now be excavated without
"experts" immediately describing it as a temple, with sacred rites,
priests & all that baloney, while the naive just soak it all up. But 50
years ago one could drive past Stonehenge (Wiltshire, UK), stop by the
roadside, wander across & walk among those huge stones and enjoy the
experience, whereas today it's pay-per-view, with a vasty visitor
centre, car-parking & hordes, plus a pile of knick-nacks to buy & a
traffic jam on the road. And then there are those nutty faux-druids
bumbling around in flowing gowns & spouting invented tosh at every
solstice - real candidates for human sacrifice, some might say ;)

In the 1880s fixed riggers were being made from brazed-together steel
tubes & there were sliding seats, swivel oarlocks, etc., so there was
not the slightest material obstacle to implementing this device.
Perhaps, however, seeing that the sliding rigger offered complexity
without performance enhancement, & being rather more practical &
down-to-earth than today's fashion-driven rowers, they saw no point in
taking it further?

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

[LakeGator]

I recall seeing a few bow loaders in the late 1960s. Maybe my recollection is like George Carlin's statement saying "If you remember the 60s you weren't there" but I am quite sure there were a few around.

don

[SimonM]

It was between the Munich and Montreal Olympics - in '72 all used conventional boats and in '76 almost all used bowloaders. The Jan 76 Rowing Magazine shows a shot from the '75 World Championships at Nottingham with DDR and Canada using bowloaders and GB in a conventional four.

[Henry Law]

On 04/05/15 15:19, SimonM wrote:
> in '72 all used conventional boats and in '76 almost all used bowloaders.

Does anyone have access to the rigorous comparison that was done between
the two configurations? It would be most interesting to see it.

Double-blind trials would, I admit, be a tad difficult, but I'm sure it
was possible to eliminate at least some of the sources of error when the
testing was done.

--

Henry Law Manchester, England

[Richard du P]

That bulge in the Law cheek - could it be Henry's tongue?

I'm quite sure the benefit of putting the cox' eyes as close as possible to water level was Obvious - just as successive fashions in blade design have all been Obviously Good Things.

My club, rowing on the Thames Tideway, has taken a step into front-loading...
BUT on the clear understanding that the boat will not "cascade" down to novice crews; when it is to be replaced, it will be sold. In my later years as an umpire, frontloaders were arriving in novice competition; I hated those stares of blank incomprehension, when one asked which oarsman would relay steering instructions to the cox.

The Fullers Head of the River Fours, has an "overtaking rule" different to most, simply in reaction to the prevalence of frontloaders.
Just occasionally, a crew turns up which has actually read the rules .....

Sorry, hope that didn't come across all badtempered, very good lunch, daughter's birthday close to the Bank Holiday.

Richard du P

[mruscoe]

On 04/05/2015 15:19, SimonM wrote:
> It was between the Munich and Montreal Olympics - in '72 all used conventional boats and in '76 almost all used bowloaders. The Jan 76 Rowing Magazine shows a shot from the '75 World Championships at Nottingham with DDR and Canada using bowloaders and GB in a conventional four.
>

A bit of internet searching leaves me with the impression that bow coxed
pairs became fashionable earlier than fours - from the late 1950s. I
don't know whether that is true, but I can find older photos of coxed
pairs than fours.

[Henry Law]

On 04/05/15 18:57, Richard du P wrote:
> My club, rowing on the Thames Tideway, has taken a step into front-loading

As a tiny club with limited resources, we buy only second-hand boats,
and I'm told by the people who do it that stern-coxed fours are
virtually impossible to find these days on the second-hand market; so
that's what we get. In any case, themn's are convinced that stern-coxed
fours are only good for lower-level crews.

I'm prepared to consider, given the evidence that my tongue-in-cheek
post described, that front-loaders _may_ be all right for elite crews;
except that I would observe that elite crews are likely to be targeting
4- anyway. For non-elite crews, with non-elite coxes (and like most
clubs we often find it hard to find a cox of any level of skill) it
seems to me that front-loaders are a Very Bad Idea.

* The cox is virtually unable to fulfil the role of "coach's assistant",
which is a vital part of her or his role; in fact in a small club with
limited coaching he or she may /be/ the coach half the time.

* The presence of a human bean in the bow of the boat makes it difficult
to put in adequate buoyancy. I say "difficult" because I've no
experience of designing or building boats; but that said I can't see how
you put /any/ buoyancy for'ard: how do bow-loaders meet even FISA's
buoyancy requirements?

* It's harder to get out of a bow-loader in the event of a capsize. How
much harder I don't know, but I worry every time I see a tall
rower-who-agreed-to-cox squeeze her or himself into that small space,
especially on a cold day.

* The coxing position is damned uncomfortable! The boat I was in on
Saturday has a metal bracket, minimally padded with rather inadequate
soft foam, on which cox had to lean her head. What sort of way is that
to treat anyone?

As I said, if there's evidence that bow-loaders are faster than the
traditional design then maybe that could be traded off against these
points. But is there? My knowledge of the rowing world strongly
suggests not. Some crew happened to compete in one and won a top-class
competition, so everyone else followed along. And demanded they all be
yellow too.

[Kit Davies]

On 03/05/2015 10:24, Edward M wrote:
> how (and why -- although this one's fairly obvious) the bowloader eight, of which I've seen pictures, was retired ...

Here in the UK, bowloader 8s were banned for safety reasons by the Head
of the River Race, the principal head race on the Tideway in London, in
around 1988. Given the pre-eminence of the event, the market for them in
the UK collapsed as a result. Which was unfortunate for our club as we
had just bought one, a Janousek. We have it to this day and row it
regularly in training and closed competition and it remains a very fast
boat, though I can't say whether this is because of its configuration.
Stroke does need to have snake hips though. The stern canvas is barely 3
feet long.

I don't know when the ban was extended to general UK racing though.

BTW, when you've finished your bowloader research, this should be your
next project:

http://www.mfsospartak.ru/upload/medialibrary/f16/1976_06.jpg

;)
Kit

[Chris A]

Certainly before the 80s. Moscow 8+ final here

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zNCk_Fc5jQA

Or the 1972 Holland Beker here

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HJlvSRSutM8

[Chris A]

The one things about bow loaders is that I was in on a while ago - first time for a number of years and the first time since I started Varifocals. Couldn't see a thing unless I perched my glasses right at the end of my nose at great risk of losing them. Wouldn't do it again!

[Chris A]

On Monday, May 4, 2015 at 9:02:17 PM UTC+1, Kit Davies wrote:

>
> I don't know when the ban was extended to general UK racing though.
>
> BTW, when you've finished your bowloader research, this should be your
> next project:
>
> http://www.mfsospartak.ru/upload/medialibrary/f16/1976_06.jpg
>
> ;)
> Kit

That's because no such ban exists!

[gsl...@gmail.com]

On Monday, May 4, 2015 at 11:34:38 AM UTC-7, Henry Law wrote:
> As I said, if there's evidence that bow-loaders are faster than the
> traditional design then maybe that could be traded off against these
> points. But is there? My knowledge of the rowing world strongly
> suggests not. Some crew happened to compete in one and won a top-class
> competition, so everyone else followed along. And demanded they all be
> yellow too.

I've rowed sweep about three times in the last two decades and coxed about twice that much, so take this with a grain of salt....

The argument is that cox is much less likely to disturb the set of the boat with any excess upper body movement and the boat is more stable with a lower center of mass. They have a clear view of what is in front of them so will not be trying to see around a crew. It is also much easier for the cox to steer a good course (that is, as long as they remain aware of where the ends of the blades which they can no longer see). Between better set and better steering they certainly are often faster.

Personally I would rather race a bow loader but train in a stern coxed four.

[tim.j...@gmail.com]

see http://www.rowinghistory-aus.info/olympic-games/1956-2.php
at the bottom of page for contrasting pairs.

German (Unified Team?) crewed turned up to the 1956 Olympics with bow coxed pair
in contrast to the stern coxed used by all other crews.
Apparently the crew spent and anxious week as there was some questions raised over the legality of the boat.

In the end they took silver 2.0 seconds behind American who used a stern
coxed boat.

Also see
http://www.row2k.com/features/print_feature.cfm?id=445&type=Feature

taken from Peter Mallory's all encompassing work on the sport.

TW.

[gsl...@gmail.com]

Not sure where I read this story but there is another downside of a bowloader...

A college crew who was training in a bowloader 4+ and ran into something when the cox fell asleep. The coach was naturally very upset and ask the crew why they hadn't noticed she wasn't saying anything. One of the rowers meekly said "frankly coach it was a big relief". The cox was immediately fired.

[SingleMinded]

On Tuesday, 5 May 2015 02:37:34 UTC+1, tim.j...@gmail.com wrote:
> see http://www.rowinghistory-aus.info/olympic-games/1956-2.php
> at the bottom of page for contrasting pairs.

I also noticed the Italian 4+ who are using a tandem ("bucket") rig.

According to this paper:
http://arxiv.org/pdf/0911.3551v3.pdf

that is the Moto Guzzi four (from the works club of the motorcycle company), who were the first to adopt such a rig on the suggestion of one of the company's engineers- and did well enough with it to be selected as the Italian crew for the Olympics and win gold.

Incidentally, both the "quadruple bucket" and the rig the paper describes as "the worst rig" (a four with stroke and 3 on the same side) have appeared recently at US universities!

http://www.row2k.com/gallery/pf_gal.cfm?dir=2012Spring/0414StanfordInvite1MM&start=2
The Stanford "Battleship Rig" or "quadruple bucket"

http://www.row2k.com/dadvail/photo.cfm?action=pf&dir=2014Spring/DadVail/0509FridayPMA&start=190
The "worst rig", as demonstrated by Iona College

[Stewie]

A few thoughts on these points Henry:

> * The cox is virtually unable to fulfil the role of "coach's assistant",
> which is a vital part of her or his role; in fact in a small club with
> limited coaching he or she may /be/ the coach half the time.

I'd like to think that, with a crew "good enough" to go out in the bow-loader, I can do at least 80% of my normal job by feel and the occasional look around. Several other coxes I know agree with me on this. It's only when crews are likely to have major cock-ups that we really need to see every blade - we mostly fly by the seat of our pants.

> * The presence of a human bean in the bow of the boat makes it difficult
> to put in adequate buoyancy. I say "difficult" because I've no
> experience of designing or building boats; but that said I can't see how
> you put /any/ buoyancy for'ard: how do bow-loaders meet even FISA's
> buoyancy requirements?

In all bow-loaders I've been in there's a bulkhead at the cox's feet, and everything forward of that (about 3-4 feet IIRC) is buoyant. Due to their long canvasses, fours have much more "spare" buoyant capacity than eights, so bow-loaders can be fully buoyant. Carl has discussed before that building a truly buoyant bow-loader eight would be almost impossible for anything but the lightest crews.

> * It's harder to get out of a bow-loader in the event of a capsize. How
> much harder I don't know, but I worry every time I see a tall
> rower-who-agreed-to-cox squeeze her or himself into that small space,
> especially on a cold day.

Manual lifejackets and a bit of dexterity. I have seen one capsize and the cox got out without much trouble, but he was a full-time cox and not a volunteering rower (if you were at Wallingford Head in 2013 and got delayed - this is why). There is a FISA minimum spec on openings for this exact reason; how much engineering thought went into that spec I wouldn't like to speculate. I consider it a calculated risk; again, I would only go out in one with a good crew.

> * The coxing position is damned uncomfortable! The boat I was in on
> Saturday has a metal bracket, minimally padded with rather inadequate
> soft foam, on which cox had to lean her head. What sort of way is that
> to treat anyone?

I find them pretty comfy! The Janousek ones I've been out in have a nice back support, so I generally don't find the metal bar that uncomfortable as there's not that much weight in it. I've seen Stampflis with pretty comprehensive head-rests installed. In all, much better than some eights I've had to jam myself into - being legally dead from the thighs downwards for an hour is not a nice feeling.

Finally:

> I'm told by the people who do it that stern-coxed fours are
> virtually impossible to find these days on the second-hand market

They are! Schools snap them up in no time to use as coxed quads. There's a similar trade in old eights, especially pre-2000 Janouseks.

Cheers
Stewie

[madmar...@gmail.com]

I recall an Australian coxswain (David 'Chips' Colvin) relating a story of his experience in the 1980s with a 'new' bow loader boat that was (if I recall correctly) converted from a 4-.

There wasn't much room up front, so when he was in the boat an angled board was slid in behind him to support his head and shoulders, then screwed into place like an old style foot stretcher with the big wing bolts and the brass adjuster plates.

After one row he refused to get back in the boat - if it had gone over he'd have been trapped!

Sorry that I can't recall the exact date. You might be able to track him down via Mercantile Rowing Club in Melbourne.

[Henry Law]

On 06/05/15 02:21, Stewie wrote:
> with a crew "good enough" to go out in the bow-loader

With that proviso I'm happy enough with most of what you report as a
seasoned cox (at 6' 6" and 90Kg or more I'm unlikely ever to find out in
practice what I'm talking about ...), although there is still some
residual anxiety on the subject of cox's exit when upside down.

But only with a good crew; how good? Certainly not novices, which
suggests that a club should have both kinds of boats.

[Henry Law]

On 05/05/15 23:50, SingleMinded wrote:
> http://www.row2k.com/dadvail/photo.cfm?action=pf&dir=2014Spring/DadVail/0509FridayPMA&start=190
> The "worst rig", as demonstrated by Iona College

That's the rowing equivalent of a PC CPU with two dual-core processors:
it's a 2- configured with two physical rowers per virtual rower.

[SingleMinded]

2+- and I would hate to have to remember that rig for steering calls without the rowers in front of me!

(One pitfall I have seen with bow-loaders is that if your club frequently changes the rig, coxes can order the wrong rowers to take taps as they forget who is on which side).

[carl]

On different tack, what is the crash-resistance of bow-loaders?

I ask because the space around the bow cox seems poorly braced against
the buckling forces which, in an approximately head-on impact, might
well allow the boat to fold there. To elaborate, the shell's structure
goes rather abruptly from fully-tubular to a fully-open channel, which
focusses compressive loads onto the reinforced but un-braced sax tops.
I've seen fours with major creases in that locality which indicate that
this part becomes the boat's principal crumple-zone in such an impact.

If the bow folds due to edge buckling at the cox's aperture (which
becomes the hinge), that could be nasty for cox who might be injured or
trapped. What if any crash tests have been done?

Some years ago there had been a number of nasty incidents in white-water
kayaking in which a kayak folded around a rock under the force of the
current, trapping & drowning the occupant. IIRC, this problem led to
design & constructional modifications, possibly mandatory.

[John Mulholland]

Furthermore, on a cold day, who can tell if the cox in the bow is showing early signs of hypothermia?

[Stewie]

Fully agree Henry. It's a bit of a judgement call, but I would say at least 2 years' average experience and nobody with less than a year of regular rowing. Yes, unless you're Leander, every club should have stern-loaders if they are going to have bow-loaders.

Cheers
Stewie

[michael....@gmail.com]

Bulgaria or somebody had an 8+ at Henley in '77 or '78 or so, I believe.

The Wisco women had an Empacher 8+ in the mid-eighties. We borrowed it for nationals in '87.

St. Catherine's lightweight men had a wooden Empacher 8+ at the 1986 Head of the Charles.

[dspring...@googlemail.com]

On Monday, May 4, 2015 at 9:02:17 PM UTC+1, Kit Davies wrote:

Indeed...the very boat in which I rowed bow in the Walton Ladies Plate 8 in 1989 (a boat which included Martin McElroy...who hasn't done too badly for himself in the world of rowing...)

[michael....@gmail.com]

Here's one winning Worlds:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LpJCLB_A-0s

[michael....@gmail.com]

Italian Lights from the streak era:

https://vimeo.com/62527681