Rowing 2: Graduating to Advanced Beginner
Dec. 15th, 2016 03:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
liveonearthThe previous post about big water rowing strategy for small water boaters has been helpful to a lot of non-boatmen tasked with rowing. Friends have asked me to write more about rowing skills, so here we go. It took me years to get comfortable with the basics because I was only occasionally on the oars. When I finally got control of my boat angle in turbulent water I started having better lines. Moving the boat forward and going for the meat got easier, but any finer points were lost on me. I've ridden with boatmen who row every day for months and years on end, and they knew things that you have to learn by doing. I've never rowed for a living, so I'm an amateur. Still, I've had some seasons when I rowed enough that light bulbs went off in my head. Here are three lessons that made a big difference for me.
Lesson 1: Push More (You Don't Have Pull out of Every Corner)
Rookie rowers tend to pull away from every obstacle. They know that pulling is their strongest stroke, and they are beginners, so any rock or bend in the river puts them into backwards mode. They set up way ahead of time and pull hard, working up a sweat and then accidentally catching the eddy at the bottom. If they simply dropped their oars and picked up a beer, they'd probably float right around the dreaded obstacle. The water goes around it, and most likely so will you. This is not to say that you should never pull, but at least experiment with pushing more. Work with the water instead of against it. This technique was developed by Nathanial Galloway in the 1800’s, so it’s not exactly new.
One time I hiked in at Phantom and stepped onto a raft rowed by a SOBEK boatman who’d seen the world from the top of a cooler. The flow was at least 25,000 cfs (or more due to monsoon rains), and he pushed through Horn, Granite, Hermit, Crystal and all the Gems, with nary a backstroke to remember. It was his expressed goal to never ever pull and always push, all the way down the Canyon.
If you are looking downstream you can (obviously) read water better. You can push around most corners (in Grand Canyon at least) because the laterals coming off the bank keep you from hitting it. Instead of freaking out that you will splat on shore, start pushing early toward the inside of the turn. This puts your boat broadside to laterals coming off the obstacle. If you nudge the boat in the right direction, the laterals will usually surf your boat away from the obstacle. You shouldn't be working super hard when you are pushing; the advantage comes from being able to see and using angles and the waves to put you where you want to go. When this strategy fails you will flip or pin, so practice on easy stuff. Look out for undercuts because they don't generate laterals so they don't push you away from them. Before you end up broadside on a rock or wall, pivot the boat and pull away. If you can't avoid a collision the next step is to highside to prevent a flip or pin.
Pushing requires that you stay on the job. You can't take your eyes off the river. You must set up well and make your moves early. Push strokes are weak so you have to use the river. You also can't relax at the bottom of the rapids because you'll get sucked into an eddy and blow yourself out just getting back into the current. Your goal is to keep the boat’s momentum going downstream through the swirlies at the bottom of the rapid, and keep moving gradually through the headwinds on the flats. You are on duty as long as you are in the driver's seat.
Groups of rafts move downstream better when all of the boatmen are wide awake and pushing. Moving downstream smoothly saves time for hiking and could get you to camp by lunchtime. At the least you will spend fewer afternoons battling headwinds.
Groups with a mix of pushers and pullers have two kinds of trouble. When a puller is in front of a pusher in a rapid there can be crowding and passing if not collisions. When the pushers get out front, the group can get split up by miles.
As with every technique, there are times when pushing does not work. If you have huge momentum toward shore, you might need to pull to neutralize that momentum. Turning your boat sidesways to laterals does not work for avoiding undercuts because they do not generate laterals. Turning your boat sideways to a big lateral like the one top left at Upset rapid could flip you. Everything is a judgement call.
Practice steadily pushing through easy and moderate rapids and save pulling for when you really need it. Your rowing days will get shorter and easier.
Lesson 2: Training Wheels are for Novices
When people first start rowing, they often have a setup that keeps the oars from twisting, such as oar rites (with locks) or pins and clips. Both of these allow the rower to drop the blade in the water, and grab the handle knowing that a push down will bring the blade slicing back to the surface. This is helpful for the rookie who is still figuring out how to push, pull, pivot, and manage the momentum of a raft. If your hands are full just hitting the lines, or if you’re rowing just one trip and then no more, it’s reasonable to use rites or pins and keep the task as simple as possible.
But if you have some aptitude for rowing and want to get good at it, ditch the training wheels. Being able to feather your oar blades both in the water and in the air is part of the art of rowing. People think that they will naturally graduate from using oar rites, but if you start with them, you will probably get dependent on them. Using rites you don’t learn to control your blade angle, and the transition can be rough.
If your frame is set up with oarlocks, and your oars have stoppers on them in addition to oar rites, you can remove the rites using a screw driver at any time. If you’re using pins and clips, you have to switch out the pins for locks and the clips for stoppers to gain control of your blade angles.
One thing you can do to prepare for using open oarlocks without rites is to strengthen your grip and arms. It takes considerable strength to control your oars and rookies who make this switch often end a longer trip with tendonitis in their elbows. Taking NSAIDS to row each day makes the tendonitis turn into a tendonosis which is even worse. Strengthen your forearms and hands before launching to head this problem off.
As soon as you launch without training wheels you will discover the downside. It's some work to control your oars. The river can and will take your oars away from you, and you will whiff some strokes. This is par for the course.
When the oar gets stuck under the water, you have to twist the handle until the blade begins slicing the way you want it to. After the river tests you a few times you’ll get the hang of it. Dory boatmen have been known to use their oars to brace and prevent flips, but I haven’t heard of anyone doing this in a raft.
You will discover that you naturally rotate the oar a little bit with each stroke, and if you do nothing to correct it the blade angle doesn't take long to be nonfunctional. To avoid this problem you you bring the blade back to the correct angle while it is in the air, during the recovery part of the stroke. When pulling, the oar shaft will naturally rotate backward, so you must twist it forward a little bit to keep it right.
Try losing the training wheels on a section that is easy for you, so you have time to get your brain rewired for managing blade angle on top of everything else. Once you get the feel of rowing with open oarlocks, it is the most natural and comfortable thing in the world. The oars become an extension of your body instead of some big sticks that want to beat you. If you get used to rowing this way and then jump into a boat with rites, they will just piss you off. That’s when you know you’ve graduated to advanced beginner.
Lesson 3: Boat Ergonomics
If you just can't row for shit, the boat probably doesn't fit you. An excellent boatman trying to row a bad setup might as well be tied up. When you get the oars, seat and foot braces in the right place for you, your body will be in its strongest position. Then you have a fighting chance. Not every part of a row rig is adjustable, so the learning curve can involve suffering. Get the right length oars relative to the boat; you can't adjust oars at the put-in. You also can't adjust the dimensions of a welded frame, so hopefully the one you end up with is not weirdly sized.
Most parts of a row rig are adjustable, and you will need to get familiar with all of them. Get help. If you are going on a longer trip, you will end up tinkering with your boat many times as you learn how each part affects your rowing. Sometimes the river tinkers with your boat, and you have to put it back the way it was.
Some of the possible adjustments include oar stand location and angle, seat height, foot brace locations, and fulcrum location on the oars.
Most folks put the oar stands near the midpoint of the frame’s length. Some prefer them to be toward the rear so that they can rudder more and use paddle power from passengers in the front to move forward. These are known as center mount or rear mount respectively, and require different rowing styles.
To adjust the oar stand location and angle, look for the set screws in the fitting that connects the oar stand with the frame. On most frames you can slide them forward and back, and pick the angle that they lean outward, before tightening the screws to hold it in place.
You want the middle of your stroke to occur when the blade is at 90 degrees to the boat. Sit in the boat and use your body to determine the front-back location of your oar stand. You also want to be able to get your oar blades all the way in the water and lift them out while keeping your shoulders in their strongest position. Reaching the water depends on several factors including the outward lean of the oarstands, the height of the oar stands, and the height of your seat.
If you are particularly tall or short, investigate oar stand length options well ahead of time. If you are of more average height, you can probably use whatever comes with the frame. Play with your seat height, the tilt of your oar stands, and the fulcrum of your oar (more on this soon) until your strokes occur at with the handle at shoulder height and the blade fully immersed.
When you think you have found the right spot, tighten the set screws enough to hold but not so tight that they are damaging the frame. Get help with this. While you’re at it, make sure all the set screws in the frame are tightened correctly.
Footrest locations depend on your leg length, the heigh of your seat, and the floor space of the frame. You will want more than one footrest setting. You may wish to strap ammo cans in the cockpit for an intermediate footrest. For heroic hard pulls, most boatmen put their feet on the frame in front of them because this yields the most power per stroke. For general rowing this stance is not comfortable, and a midpoint foot rest is nice to have. For pushing, most people sit toward the front of their seat with their tippy toes touching the floor. If you can't reach the floor, you might want to put something under your feet for comfort there too. There is an opposing view that says keep your floor clear as possible to make it easier to hunker down in there without getting dinged on hard boxes. The choice is ultimately up to you how many and what kind of footrests you rig.
Last but not least, your personal strength and power should determine where you put the fulcrum of your oars. The fulcrum is the location of the oar stopper or clip on the oar. You can move a stopper just by banging it against the oar lock, but to move a clip you need tools. The fulcrum location determines what gear you are in while rowing. Guys often rig their oars so that their hands are shoulder distance apart when they stretch their arms out in front of them with hands on the handles. I call this macho man rowing, because it puts you in a high gear; you have to be very strong to take a stroke. The advantage is that if you are strong enough to manage it, you can really move the boat.
If you are puny like me and prefer granny gear, you can set your oars up girlie style. I put my stoppers more toward the blade so that when my arms are outstretched in front of me on the oar grips, my hands overlap. This puts me in a nice low gear which allows me to take strokes without the oars getting ripped out of my hands so often. There is a hazard involved, however, and that is the pinched thumbs that you get if you wrap your thumbs around the ends of the handles and forget to cross them during your stroke recovery. After a few pinches you will learn to cross them without having to think about it.
Of course there are inches of middle ground between macho and girlie. Play with it and figure out what the right fulcrum is for you. Stoppers tend to work their way toward the handle with rowing, so you may start out girlie style and end up macho style without noticing. This is fine but you should check your oars daily to make sure your oars haven’t adjusted themselves to some arrangement that doesn't work for you.
It's wise to check every part of your rowing apparatus daily. The ball popped off the top of one of my pins in the middle of a big rapid on the Merced. My oarlock, stand and all, launched into the water in Hell’s Half Mile above Velvet on the Middle Fork. Don't make the same mistakes I have made. Make sure those babies are secure. I've seen oar rites get twisted on the oar shaft, oar stands get tweaked out to the side, floors drop diagonally and coolers shimmey right out of their straps. Develop a routine that involves a 20+ point check to make sure that your boat doesn't come apart on you when you really wish it would hold.
Bottom line is that when you first start out you aren't likely to have a clue how to make the boat fit you, but you will learn. Ask questions and get help, instead of just suffering. There's usually a way to personalize any borrowed or rented rig so that it fits you, at least better than it did when you got it. Get that allen wrench out of the repair kit, and start tinkering.
Lesson 1: Push More (You Don't Have Pull out of Every Corner)
Rookie rowers tend to pull away from every obstacle. They know that pulling is their strongest stroke, and they are beginners, so any rock or bend in the river puts them into backwards mode. They set up way ahead of time and pull hard, working up a sweat and then accidentally catching the eddy at the bottom. If they simply dropped their oars and picked up a beer, they'd probably float right around the dreaded obstacle. The water goes around it, and most likely so will you. This is not to say that you should never pull, but at least experiment with pushing more. Work with the water instead of against it. This technique was developed by Nathanial Galloway in the 1800’s, so it’s not exactly new.
One time I hiked in at Phantom and stepped onto a raft rowed by a SOBEK boatman who’d seen the world from the top of a cooler. The flow was at least 25,000 cfs (or more due to monsoon rains), and he pushed through Horn, Granite, Hermit, Crystal and all the Gems, with nary a backstroke to remember. It was his expressed goal to never ever pull and always push, all the way down the Canyon.
If you are looking downstream you can (obviously) read water better. You can push around most corners (in Grand Canyon at least) because the laterals coming off the bank keep you from hitting it. Instead of freaking out that you will splat on shore, start pushing early toward the inside of the turn. This puts your boat broadside to laterals coming off the obstacle. If you nudge the boat in the right direction, the laterals will usually surf your boat away from the obstacle. You shouldn't be working super hard when you are pushing; the advantage comes from being able to see and using angles and the waves to put you where you want to go. When this strategy fails you will flip or pin, so practice on easy stuff. Look out for undercuts because they don't generate laterals so they don't push you away from them. Before you end up broadside on a rock or wall, pivot the boat and pull away. If you can't avoid a collision the next step is to highside to prevent a flip or pin.
Pushing requires that you stay on the job. You can't take your eyes off the river. You must set up well and make your moves early. Push strokes are weak so you have to use the river. You also can't relax at the bottom of the rapids because you'll get sucked into an eddy and blow yourself out just getting back into the current. Your goal is to keep the boat’s momentum going downstream through the swirlies at the bottom of the rapid, and keep moving gradually through the headwinds on the flats. You are on duty as long as you are in the driver's seat.
Groups of rafts move downstream better when all of the boatmen are wide awake and pushing. Moving downstream smoothly saves time for hiking and could get you to camp by lunchtime. At the least you will spend fewer afternoons battling headwinds.
Groups with a mix of pushers and pullers have two kinds of trouble. When a puller is in front of a pusher in a rapid there can be crowding and passing if not collisions. When the pushers get out front, the group can get split up by miles.
As with every technique, there are times when pushing does not work. If you have huge momentum toward shore, you might need to pull to neutralize that momentum. Turning your boat sidesways to laterals does not work for avoiding undercuts because they do not generate laterals. Turning your boat sideways to a big lateral like the one top left at Upset rapid could flip you. Everything is a judgement call.
Practice steadily pushing through easy and moderate rapids and save pulling for when you really need it. Your rowing days will get shorter and easier.
Lesson 2: Training Wheels are for Novices
When people first start rowing, they often have a setup that keeps the oars from twisting, such as oar rites (with locks) or pins and clips. Both of these allow the rower to drop the blade in the water, and grab the handle knowing that a push down will bring the blade slicing back to the surface. This is helpful for the rookie who is still figuring out how to push, pull, pivot, and manage the momentum of a raft. If your hands are full just hitting the lines, or if you’re rowing just one trip and then no more, it’s reasonable to use rites or pins and keep the task as simple as possible.
But if you have some aptitude for rowing and want to get good at it, ditch the training wheels. Being able to feather your oar blades both in the water and in the air is part of the art of rowing. People think that they will naturally graduate from using oar rites, but if you start with them, you will probably get dependent on them. Using rites you don’t learn to control your blade angle, and the transition can be rough.
If your frame is set up with oarlocks, and your oars have stoppers on them in addition to oar rites, you can remove the rites using a screw driver at any time. If you’re using pins and clips, you have to switch out the pins for locks and the clips for stoppers to gain control of your blade angles.
One thing you can do to prepare for using open oarlocks without rites is to strengthen your grip and arms. It takes considerable strength to control your oars and rookies who make this switch often end a longer trip with tendonitis in their elbows. Taking NSAIDS to row each day makes the tendonitis turn into a tendonosis which is even worse. Strengthen your forearms and hands before launching to head this problem off.
As soon as you launch without training wheels you will discover the downside. It's some work to control your oars. The river can and will take your oars away from you, and you will whiff some strokes. This is par for the course.
When the oar gets stuck under the water, you have to twist the handle until the blade begins slicing the way you want it to. After the river tests you a few times you’ll get the hang of it. Dory boatmen have been known to use their oars to brace and prevent flips, but I haven’t heard of anyone doing this in a raft.
You will discover that you naturally rotate the oar a little bit with each stroke, and if you do nothing to correct it the blade angle doesn't take long to be nonfunctional. To avoid this problem you you bring the blade back to the correct angle while it is in the air, during the recovery part of the stroke. When pulling, the oar shaft will naturally rotate backward, so you must twist it forward a little bit to keep it right.
Try losing the training wheels on a section that is easy for you, so you have time to get your brain rewired for managing blade angle on top of everything else. Once you get the feel of rowing with open oarlocks, it is the most natural and comfortable thing in the world. The oars become an extension of your body instead of some big sticks that want to beat you. If you get used to rowing this way and then jump into a boat with rites, they will just piss you off. That’s when you know you’ve graduated to advanced beginner.
Lesson 3: Boat Ergonomics
If you just can't row for shit, the boat probably doesn't fit you. An excellent boatman trying to row a bad setup might as well be tied up. When you get the oars, seat and foot braces in the right place for you, your body will be in its strongest position. Then you have a fighting chance. Not every part of a row rig is adjustable, so the learning curve can involve suffering. Get the right length oars relative to the boat; you can't adjust oars at the put-in. You also can't adjust the dimensions of a welded frame, so hopefully the one you end up with is not weirdly sized.
Most parts of a row rig are adjustable, and you will need to get familiar with all of them. Get help. If you are going on a longer trip, you will end up tinkering with your boat many times as you learn how each part affects your rowing. Sometimes the river tinkers with your boat, and you have to put it back the way it was.
Some of the possible adjustments include oar stand location and angle, seat height, foot brace locations, and fulcrum location on the oars.
Most folks put the oar stands near the midpoint of the frame’s length. Some prefer them to be toward the rear so that they can rudder more and use paddle power from passengers in the front to move forward. These are known as center mount or rear mount respectively, and require different rowing styles.
To adjust the oar stand location and angle, look for the set screws in the fitting that connects the oar stand with the frame. On most frames you can slide them forward and back, and pick the angle that they lean outward, before tightening the screws to hold it in place.
You want the middle of your stroke to occur when the blade is at 90 degrees to the boat. Sit in the boat and use your body to determine the front-back location of your oar stand. You also want to be able to get your oar blades all the way in the water and lift them out while keeping your shoulders in their strongest position. Reaching the water depends on several factors including the outward lean of the oarstands, the height of the oar stands, and the height of your seat.
If you are particularly tall or short, investigate oar stand length options well ahead of time. If you are of more average height, you can probably use whatever comes with the frame. Play with your seat height, the tilt of your oar stands, and the fulcrum of your oar (more on this soon) until your strokes occur at with the handle at shoulder height and the blade fully immersed.
When you think you have found the right spot, tighten the set screws enough to hold but not so tight that they are damaging the frame. Get help with this. While you’re at it, make sure all the set screws in the frame are tightened correctly.
Footrest locations depend on your leg length, the heigh of your seat, and the floor space of the frame. You will want more than one footrest setting. You may wish to strap ammo cans in the cockpit for an intermediate footrest. For heroic hard pulls, most boatmen put their feet on the frame in front of them because this yields the most power per stroke. For general rowing this stance is not comfortable, and a midpoint foot rest is nice to have. For pushing, most people sit toward the front of their seat with their tippy toes touching the floor. If you can't reach the floor, you might want to put something under your feet for comfort there too. There is an opposing view that says keep your floor clear as possible to make it easier to hunker down in there without getting dinged on hard boxes. The choice is ultimately up to you how many and what kind of footrests you rig.
Last but not least, your personal strength and power should determine where you put the fulcrum of your oars. The fulcrum is the location of the oar stopper or clip on the oar. You can move a stopper just by banging it against the oar lock, but to move a clip you need tools. The fulcrum location determines what gear you are in while rowing. Guys often rig their oars so that their hands are shoulder distance apart when they stretch their arms out in front of them with hands on the handles. I call this macho man rowing, because it puts you in a high gear; you have to be very strong to take a stroke. The advantage is that if you are strong enough to manage it, you can really move the boat.
If you are puny like me and prefer granny gear, you can set your oars up girlie style. I put my stoppers more toward the blade so that when my arms are outstretched in front of me on the oar grips, my hands overlap. This puts me in a nice low gear which allows me to take strokes without the oars getting ripped out of my hands so often. There is a hazard involved, however, and that is the pinched thumbs that you get if you wrap your thumbs around the ends of the handles and forget to cross them during your stroke recovery. After a few pinches you will learn to cross them without having to think about it.
Of course there are inches of middle ground between macho and girlie. Play with it and figure out what the right fulcrum is for you. Stoppers tend to work their way toward the handle with rowing, so you may start out girlie style and end up macho style without noticing. This is fine but you should check your oars daily to make sure your oars haven’t adjusted themselves to some arrangement that doesn't work for you.
It's wise to check every part of your rowing apparatus daily. The ball popped off the top of one of my pins in the middle of a big rapid on the Merced. My oarlock, stand and all, launched into the water in Hell’s Half Mile above Velvet on the Middle Fork. Don't make the same mistakes I have made. Make sure those babies are secure. I've seen oar rites get twisted on the oar shaft, oar stands get tweaked out to the side, floors drop diagonally and coolers shimmey right out of their straps. Develop a routine that involves a 20+ point check to make sure that your boat doesn't come apart on you when you really wish it would hold.
Bottom line is that when you first start out you aren't likely to have a clue how to make the boat fit you, but you will learn. Ask questions and get help, instead of just suffering. There's usually a way to personalize any borrowed or rented rig so that it fits you, at least better than it did when you got it. Get that allen wrench out of the repair kit, and start tinkering.
