Boating Part 14

5. Oxford, 1883 58 ft. 0 in. 1 ft. 10-1/2 in. J. Clasper.

Depth at stern 6-1/2 in.

[9] The first keelless eight that won a University match.

These boats are selected because each in its turn won some reputation, and also because they exemplify the builds of different constructors.

No. 1 was always highly esteemed by those who rowed in her.

No. 2 carried Eton at Henley Regatta from 1863 to 1870 or 1871.

No 3 was eulogised by Mr. T. Egan in 'Bell's Life,' on the occasion of her _debut_ in the above-mentioned school match _v._ Eton. She retained a high reputation for several seasons, was once specially borrowed by Corpus (Oxon) during the summer eights, and was said by that crew to be a vast improvement on their own ship.

No 4 carried Oxford from 1878 to 1882 inclusive, losing only the match in 1879, in which year the crew and not the boat were to blame.

No. 5, after one or two trials, was in 1883 found to be faster than No.

4 (which was then getting old!), and in her the Oxonians won a rather unexpected victory; odds of 3 to 1 being laid against them.

In addition to these builds, the dimensions recorded by the well-known authority 'Argonaut,' in his standard work on 'Boat Racing,' are here given. That writer does not commit himself to saying that they are the _best_, but simply states that they are the 'average dimensions' of modern racing boats. Unfortunately, the writer cannot trace the dimensions of the celebrated 'Chester' boat, Mat Taylor's first keelless _chef-d'[oe]uvre_, but he recollects that her length was only 54 feet; and her stretchers were built into her and were fixed.

The cost of a racing eight, with all fittings, is about 55_l._ Some builders will build at as low a price as 50_l._, especially for a crack crew, or for an important race, because the notoriety of the vessel, if successful, naturally acts as an advertis.e.m.e.nt. A four-oar costs 35_l._ to 40_l._; a pair-oar 20_l._ to 25_l._; and a sculling boat 12_l._ We have known some builders ask 15_l._ for a sculling boat. On the whole, racing boats are from eight to ten per cent. cheaper nowadays than they were a quarter of a century ago. Although the introduction of sliding seats necessarily adds to the expense of making them, compet.i.tion seems to have brought down the prices somewhat.

_'Argonaut's' Dimensions of Modern Boats._

+-------------------+---------+-------------------+---------+---------+ Racing Fours Pair Sculling Racing +---------+---------+---------+---------+ Particulars Eight With Without Oars Boats c.o.x. c.o.x. +-------------------+---------+---------+---------+---------+---------+ ft. in. ft. in. ft. in. ft. in. ft. in. Length of boat 58 6 41 0 40 0 34 4 30 0 Breadth (over all) 2 0 1 9 1 8 1 4-3/8 1 4[10] Depth, amidships 1 1-1/2 1 0-1/2 1 0 0 10-1/2 0 8-1/2 " stem 0 8 0 7-1/4 0 7-1/2 0 4-1/4 0 3-1/2 " stern 0 7-1/4 0 6-3/4 0 6-1/2 0 3-3/4 0 2-3/4 Distance from seat to thowl[11] 0 5 0 5 0 5 0 4-1/2 0 4 Height of work from level of slide 0 7-3/4 0 7-3/4 0 7-3/4 0 7-1/2 0 7-1/2 Length of slide 1 4 1 4 1 4 1 5 1 5-1/2 Length of amidship{ oars { 12 6 12 6 12 6 -- -- b.u.t.toned at { 3 6 3 5-1/2 3 5-1/2 -- -- Length of bow and{ stroke oars { 12 4 12 4 12 4 12 3 -- b.u.t.toned at { 3 4-1/2 3 4-1/2 3 4-1/2 3 4 -- Length of sculls { -- -- -- -- { 10 0 b.u.t.toned at { -- -- -- -- { 2 8 s.p.a.ce between } c.o.x.'s thwart and } stroke's stretcher} 1 8 1 8 -- -- -- (c.o.x.'s thwart } 18 inches deep) } +-------------------+---------+---------+---------+---------+---------+

[10] Breadth on boat, 11-1/4 inches.

[11] Measured from front edge of slide to plane of thowl.

The writer thinks, and believes that 'Argonaut' would agree with him, that these recorded average dimensions could be improved upon in divers respects, e.g. as to oars, for sliding seats the length 'inboard' should not be less than 3 ft. 7-1/2 in. to 3 ft. 8 in.; otherwise, when the oarsman swings back there is not sufficient length of handle to enable his outside hand to finish square to his chest, and with the elbow well past the side. The sliding-seat oar requires to be at least 10 inches longer inboard than the fixed-seat oar, for the above reason; and in order to counterpoise this extra leverage, it is customary to use blades an inch wider for slides than for fixed seats, viz. 6 inches wide at the greatest breadth, instead of 5 inches as of old.

Again, as to distance of the plane of the thowl perpendicularly from that of the front of the slide when full forward. This should not be less than 6-1/2 inches, in the writer's opinion, even with a 16-inch slide. If the oarsman slides nearer than the above to his work, he does not gain; for much of his force is thus expended in jamming the oar back against the rowlock, rather than in propelling the boat. He 'feels'

extra resistance, and may accordingly delude himself that he is doing more work, if the slides close up; but in reality he is wasting his powers.

In modern racing boats, the men slide too close to their work; and if any builder will have the courage to set his men further aft than is the custom (say about 6-1/2 to 7 inches), he will find his ship travel all the faster.

As to shapes of hull: the earliest Mat Taylor boats have never been surpa.s.sed, in the writer's opinion, and were much faster than the modern builds. The peculiarity of Mat Taylor's build was that he put his greatest beam well forward, about No. 3's middle or seat. Such boats held more 'way' than more modern craft, which are fullest amidships.

Builders of the present day construct as if the only problem which they had to solve was to force a hole through the water in front of the boat.

This is not all that is necessary in order to get a boat to travel well.

A racing boat leaves a vacuum behind her, and until that is filled she is sucked back into that vacuum.

A boat built like the half of a split porcupine's quill could enter the water with the least resistance, but would leave it with the greatest; in fact, she would not travel at all, because her bluff stern would create a sudden vacuum behind her, which would r.e.t.a.r.d her progress. This is a _reductio ad absurdum_, but it shows the effect of having the greatest beam too far aft. The problem to be solved in designing the lines of a boat is so to arrange her entry into the water, that what she displaces in front may with greatest ease flow aft to fill the vacuum aft which she leaves as she progresses. Otherwise she pushes a heavy wave in front of her, and drags another behind her. If anyone will watch the bank as a racing eight pa.s.ses, noting the level of the water at a rathole, he will see the level of the stream first rise as the boat comes nearly abreast of his point of observation. Then, as she pa.s.ses, the water will sink, and after she has pa.s.sed it will rise again higher than before she neared the spot.

The first rise is caused by the boat pushing a wave in front of her: the following depression is caused by the vacuum which she is leaving behind her, and the final rise by the wave which runs behind her to fill her vacuum. Obviously, the less water the vessel moves the easier she travels. If by any designing the wave pushed in front could be induced to run more or less back to the stern, then the second (following) wave would be more or less reduced in bulk, and the labour would be proportionately lighter.

The finer the lines taper aft, the easier the front wave displaced finds its way to the vacuum aft. _Per contra_, the more bluff the midship and stern sections, the greater the difficulty in filling the vacuum aft.

Builders hamper themselves by adhering to a red-tape idea that all oarsmen in a boat should be seated at equal distances from each other.

So long as designers adhere to this, they require a good deal of beam aft, if Nos. 6, 7 and stroke are of anything like average size. Of course, there must be a minimum of s.p.a.ce for each man to reach out in; but there is no reason why in some of the seats the s.p.a.ce should not exceed this minimum, e.g. to set the first four men at the minimum, and then to place No. 5 and extra inch past No. 4 and so on, with perhaps stroke and 7 1-1/2 inches further apart than the forward men, would enable the builder to attain a greater longitudinal displacement at the sternmost part of the boat than he would otherwise require to carry his men. In lieu of this gain, he can then reduce his beam and depth aft, and so make his lines taper more to the stern.

Mat Taylor built on this principle. Detractors used to laugh sometimes to see him chalk off his seats, and say, 'A rowlock here--a seat there.'

The fact was, Mat Taylor placed his men, man for man, over the section of vessel built to carry them, allowing the minimum distance for reach in all cases, but by no means tying himself down to that distance where in his opinion the boat required elongating aft. They said he built by rule of thumb; so, perhaps, he did, but his builds have never been surpa.s.sed. Modern eights travel faster than of old, thanks to sliding seats and good oarsmanship, but if some of the old lost lines could be now reproduced, the speedy crews of modern days would be speedier still.

We offer one more ill.u.s.tration to show the effect of having too sudden a termination to a boat aft of her greatest beam, or of a certain amount of beam. Let anyone construct two models of racing boat hulls; probably he will not succeed in making two of equal speed, but such as they are he can handicap the speedier in his experiment. Let him place the two models to race, each towed by a line carried over a pulley, with a weight at the end of the line. The weights which tow the two models can be adjusted till the two run dead heats.

Then cut off the stern of one of the models, and bulkhead her, say about c.o.xswain's seat, and let them race once more with the forces which previously produced a dead heat. The model with a docked stern will have become the smaller vessel, and will now weigh less. Nevertheless, she will become decidedly slower than she was before, and will be beaten by her late duplicate.

In order to do justice to this experiment, the weights should tow at a pace equivalent to about four miles or more an hour. It will then be seen that this docked model leaves a whirlpool behind her stern, which is r.e.t.a.r.ding her. This experiment of course exaggerates the principle of full afterlines, and their evil, but it may none the less serve to ill.u.s.trate the importance of a finer run aft from a point further forward than amidships. _En pa.s.sant_, the boat built by Salter of Oxford for the O.U.B.C. in 1865 may be mentioned; her dimensions are not to be traced, but she was specially designed to carry the heaviest man (E. F.

Henley) at bow. She was certainly never surpa.s.sed by any other boat which Salter built. She won in 1865. In 1866 a heavier crew were in training, and the 1865 boat was supposed to be too small. She was not tried at all at Oxford with the crew. A new boat was built, this time to carry E. F. Henley at 5. When the crew reached Putney the writer felt dissatisfied with the movement of the new boat, and persuaded the crew to try the old one, even though she would be rather too small for them.

They sent for her, and launched for a trial paddle the Monday before the race; so soon as they had rowed a dozen strokes in her they stopped, and declared she was the only light boat they had felt that season. They rowed the race in her, and won, and never took the trouble to set foot again in the new and rejected boat.

This victorious boat was then bought by the Oxford Etonians. They won the Grand Challenge of 1866 and 1867 in her, took her to Paris, and there won the eight-oared race at the International Regatta. She was sold and left behind in Paris. The writer suspects that her undeniable speed was mainly owing to the fact that Salter designed some extra displacement at No. 3, in order to carry E. F. Henley at that seat.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 'POETRY.']

CHAPTER XII.

TRAINING.

DIET.

That 'condition' tells in all contests, whether in brain labours such as chess matches or in athletics, is known to children in the schoolroom.

Training is the _regime_ by means of which condition is attained. Its dogmas are of two orders: (1) Those which relate to exercise, (2) those which refer to diet. Diet of itself does not train a man for rowing or any other kind of athletics. What trains is hard work; proper diet keeps the subject up to that work.

The effect of a course of training is twofold. It develops those muscles which are in use for the exercise in question, and it also prepares the internal organs of heart and lungs for the extra strain which will be put upon them during the contest. All muscles tend to develop under exercise, and to dwindle under inaction. The right shoulder and arm of a nail-maker are often out of all proportion to the left; the fingers of a pianist develop activity with practice, or lose it if the instrument be discontinued.

Training is a thorough science, and it is much better understood in these days than when the writer was in active work; and again, the trainers of his day were in their turn far ahead of those of the early years of amateur oarsmanship. From the earliest recorded days of athletic contests, there seems to have been much faith pinned to beefsteaks. When Socrates rebukes Thrasymachus, in the opening pages of Plato's 'Republic,' he speaks of beefsteaks as being the chief subject of interest to Polydamos, who seems to have been a champion of the P.R.

of Athens of those days. The beefsteak retains its prestige to the present day, but it is not the _ne plus ultra_ which it was in 1830.

The earliest amateur crews seem to have rowed in many instances without undergoing a course of training and of reduction of fat. But when important matches began to be made, the value of condition was appreciated. Prizefighters had then practical training longer than any other branch of athletics, and it was by no means uncommon for watermen, when matched by their patrons, to be placed under the supervision of some mentor from the P.R. as regards their diet and exercise. But before long watermen began to take care of themselves in this respect. Their system of training did not differ materially from that in vogue with the P.R. It consisted of hard work in thick clothing, early during the course of preparation, to reduce weight; and a good deal of pedestrian exercise formed part of the day's programme; a material result of the a.s.sociation of the P.R. system of preparation. The diet was less varied and liberal than in these days, but abstinence from fluid to as great an extent as possible was from the outset recognised as all-important for reducing bulk and clearing the wind.

A prizefighter or waterman used to commence his training with a liberal dose of physic. The idea seems to have a stable origin, a.n.a.logous to the principle of physic b.a.l.l.s for a hunter on being taken up from gra.s.s. The system was not amiss for men of mature years, who had probably been leading a life of self-indulgence since the time when they had last been in training. But when University crews began to put themselves under the care of professional trainers, those worthies used to treat these half-grown lads as they would some gin-sodden senior of forty, and would physic their insides before they set them to work. They would try to sweat them down to fiddle-strings, and were not happy unless they could show considerable reduction of weight in the scale, even with a lad who had not attained his full growth. Still, though many a young athlete naturally went amiss under this severe handling, there is no doubt that these professional trainers used to turn out their charges in very fine condition, on the average.

No trainer of horses would work a two-year-old on the same system that he would an aged horse; and the error of these old professional trainers lay in their not realising the difference in age between University men and the ordinary cla.s.ses of professional athletes. In time University men began to think and to act for themselves in the matter of training.

When college eights first began to row against each other, there were only three or four clubs which manned eights; and these eights now and then were filled up with a waterman or two. (In these days few college crews would take an Oxford waterman as a gift--_qua_ his oarsmanship!) These crews, when they began to adopt training, employed watermen as mentors. Before long there were more eights than watermen, and some crews could not obtain this a.s.sistance. The result was, a rule against employing professional tuition within a certain date of the race. This regulation threw University men upon their own resources, and before long they came to the conclusion that good amateur coaching and training was more effective than that of professionals. Mr. F. Menzies, the late Mr. G. Hughes, and the Rev. A. Shadwell, had much to do in converting the O.U.B.C. to these wholesome doctrines. From that time amateurs of all rowing clubs have very much depended on themselves and their _confreres_ for tuition in oarsmanship and training.

The usual _regime_ of amateur training is now very much to the following effect.

Reveille at 6.30 or 7 A.M.--Generally a brief morning walk; and if so, the 'tub' is usually postponed until the return from the walk. If it is summer, and there are swimming facilities, a header or two does no harm, but men should not be allowed to strike out hard in swimming, when under hard rowing rules. For some reason, which medical science can better explain, there seems to be a risk of straining the suspensory or some other ligaments, when they are suddenly relaxed in water, and then extended by a jerk. (This refers to arms that have lately been bearing the strain of rowing.) Also, the soakage in water for any length of time tends to relax the whole of the muscular system. Whether tub or swim be the order of the morning, the skin should be well rubbed down with rough towels after the immersion. In old days there used to be a _furore_ for running before breakfast. Many young men find their stomachs and appet.i.tes upset by hard work on an empty stomach, more especially in sultry weather. The Oxford U.B.C. eight at Henley in 1857 and 1859 used to go for a run up Remenham Hill before breakfast, and this within two or three days of the regatta. Such a system would now be tabooed as unsound.

Breakfast consists of grilled chops or steaks; cold meat may be allowed if a man prefers it. If possible, it is well to let a roast joint cool _uncut_, to supply cold meat for a crew. The gravy is thus retained in the meat.

Bread should be one day old; toast is better than bread. Many crews allow b.u.t.ter, but as a rule a man is better without it. It adds a trifle to adipose deposit, and does not do any special service towards strengthening his tissues or purifying his blood.