Insider Rowing

In response to an earlier post, I had one reader ask about the rigging we’re using in the pair and how it’s affected our row. I’ll reprint part of his comments:

Did you two start out w/ an idea of ideal rigging based on certain standard #’s, & then modify based on a row or two (and did you change both seats together, or one at a time), or did you try to guesstimate the best rigging based on your individual rowing experience in other shells and then modify based on experience w/ one another, etc.

Finally, what did you change and how did it change the row (both your ‘feeling’ in the shell and truePitc performance, i.e. did boat speed improve?).

Good questions. We rigged based on standard numbers: Spread: 86, Inboard: 116, Oar Length: 372, Pitch: 4 degrees

We’re rowing an older (late 90’s) Vespoli Ultralite pair and using Crokers.

We started off using oars that were 376 in length and I thought these were too long…ie, they felt too heavy and unresponsive through the water. We are lightweights afterall. Anyway, we’re currently having a debate about the oar length…I prefer 372 (lighter), Chris prefers 374 (heavier). We’re going to play with it and see where it gets us. Maybe 373?

The main rigging detail that I constantly play with is where to set my feet. I’m currently set four clicks from the bottom of the tracks to achieve what I believe is the correct finish angle and overlap. I change this quite a bit to see what effect it has. If I move my stretcher 1 click forward, I feel like I get a nice bite at the catch, but the drawback is the blade is harder to extract at the finish, ie it feels like it wants to “stick” in the water. Where I’m currently set gives me the best release, but isn’t necessarily the most efficient at the catch. I’m considering moving my spread in slightly (say .25 cm) to change my catch angle and hopefully get the best of both worlds. When coaching crews, I normally set my finish angles based on Brian Richardson’s article in the Rowing Faster book (chapter 13), but I haven’t done this yet in the pair. Maybe this week.

I think if you row in a set boat enough, you can and should fine tune your rigging to optimize your rowers. We’ve had 11 practices since I got here and we’re moving decently, with plenty of room for improvement. This whole experience is as much about me learning and connecting with the training/rigging/rowing as anything else.