A glossary of rowing terms
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Christoarpher
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22 January 2016
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All That Is Solid Melts Into Air releases today, so I thought I’d best post a glossary of rowing terms to help you all out, if only because info dumping in novels isn’t part of the best-practices matrix. Also, because I kind of did that in places alreayd.
ATISMIA makes the sixth novel I’ve set in and around a boathouse, and it’s at long last occurred to me that perhaps I should provide a glossary and commentary on the terms I’ve been using with such giddy abandon. While any of these could easily be looked up on the internet, you’ll never find my obnoxious inimitable commentary anywhere else.
The only pace is suicide pace, and today looks like a good day to die
+/- : This indicates whether or not a boat is steered by a cox’n or not., the + indicating the presence of the cox’n, the – indicating the cox’n’s absence. An uncoxed boat is usually referred to as a blind boat because its occupant(s) cannot see where s/he (in the case of a single) or they (in the case of a double, pair, or coxless quad or four) are going.
In terms of notation, a coxed four would be written as a 4+, while a coxless quad would be written as 4-. How do you tell the difference between a four and a quad? Ha! You don’t, except by context because they race in different events and because I’ve never heard of an uncoxed four in sweep rowing (see ‘Sweep rowing’ below)
At the ready/At the catch: Rowers sit at the catch position ready to take the first stroke as soon as the cox’n tells them to, or in the case of a single rower, as soon as the starting judge or ref makes the call (at the top or front of the slide, shins vertical, oar blades in the water).
Bisweptual: a switch-hitter, a rower who swings both ways, i.e. someone who rows both port and starboard in sweep rowing. What did you think it meant? I row both sides.
Blind boat: boats without cox’n, indicated on paper with the number of seats in a boat along with a minus sign, so when I’m in a blind quad, it would be indicated as a 4(-).
Bow ball: a small rubber ball affixed to the boat front that provides absolutely no protection in the event of collision if the boat is moving under any pressure stronger than paddle pressure.
Bow deck: the front deck. In a collision, it will collapse like an accordion.
Bow-loader: a coxed four in which the cox’n is seated in the bow facing forward instead of the stern. The cox’n is typically very close to the waterline and suffers greatly reduced visibility. The best cox’ns in bow-loaders quickly learn to tell what his or her rowers are doing by sound and by the motion of the boat, and will be the first to die in case of a collision. Bow-loaders are also called coffin ships, owing to the fact that in a collision the boat’s carbon-fiber hull will crumple like paper.
Bow pair: the two rowers sitting at one and two seat in a boat with four or more seats.
Bow princess: The poor sucker who rows bow. A certain amount of attitude is tolerated because whoever rows at bow will die in a collision and everyone knows it, unless it’s a bow-loader, in which case it’s the cox’n who’ll bite it and they’ve all got plenty of attitude as it is.
Bucket-rigged: in sweep rowing the standard configuration for rigging a coxed four (or an eight) is port-starboard-port-starboard stern to bow. But what if one of your starboards is your best stroke? Or what if you have an imbalance of power between your rowers? You can compensate for these by changing the configuration of the rigging on the boat.
For a starboard-stroked boat, it would look like starboard-port-port-starboard. Viewed from above, this might look a bit like a bucket. To compensate for more powerful rowers you’d change the rigging to adjust where they would be seated in the boat.
There’s not much point to bucket-rig an eight because there are more places to shift rowers to.
Catch: at the top or front of the slide when the blade of the oar catches the water.
Catching a crab: When a rower feathers the blade before it is fully extracted from the water, the current generated by the boat’s passing can grab the oar and pull it perpendicular to the hull, sometimes quite forcefully. When such a crab throws a rower from the boat, it is a called an ejection crab. The idea is that a crab has grabbed the blade of the oar. Google “ejection + crab” or “rowing + ejection + crab” for a video of this phenomenon.
Check it down: (chiefly American) A command to stop the boat’s forward motion by putting the oars in the water such that the oar blades are perpendicular to the surface of the water. The British equivalent is “Take the run off,” once again proving that the British can’t speak English.
Cox’n: God. Just ask him or her. To a cox’n, rowers are meat that moves the boat. Cox’ns in men’s and women’s crew have different personality types. Note, not male and female cox’ns, but whether or not they cox for men’s vs. women’s crew.
Men’s crew, male or female cox’n: “Is that how we row? No, goddamn it, it’s not! Pull your fucking oar through the water….stop sucking!”
Women’s crew with the same cox’n after practice: “Why did you say those things? I thought you were our friend?”
Before I’m accused of anything, that’s more or less a direct quote from one of the best cox’ns I’ve ever rowed for during a conversation about why she prefers to cox for men’s crews. Seriously, this woman is the oarsman whisperer and a true lady on land, but on the water? She’ll cut a bitch and her knife is a carbon-fiber racing shell.
Different crews, different personalities, different styles of coxing. Some people react better to verbal abuse than others. When I cox—and let me tell you, it’s hilarious to observe given my size, although I’m a decent cox’n—I generally ask what my crew prefers.
Eight: A coxed sweeps boat with eight rowers. This is the big time, the most powerful of the boats. One of these, rowed well and at full power, is a thing of beauty, and awe-inspiring to behold. If you get in its way when it’s at full power, it will fuck you up because it’s basically a dreadnought.
Note: You’ll notice that there’s no mention of coxed vs. blind eights. That’s because there are no blind eights. They move too fast and they’re too powerful to risk the health and safety of both the crew and anyone who happens to be on the water around them. That’s not to say I haven’t rowed in one…
Engine room: Seats three through six in an eight. They have a lower impact on the set of the boat than the bow pair or stern pair. This is where you put the big, muscular guys who can’t hold a beat. I generally row in the engine room, usually at five or six.
Ergometer (or erg): a rowing machine that mimics the rowing stroke. While there are other models, the Concept-2 indoor rower has a virtual monopoly in the United States and for good reason…the others suck. The C2 uses air to create resistance. I’ve liked using a water-rowers—uses water, rather than air, to create resistance—to rowing a toilet bowl.
Erg testing: Rowing a set distance for time, or a set time for distance, to see which rower wins.
Feathering/feather the blade: On fully extracting the blade from the water, the rower turns the blade parallel to water with a flick of the inboard (closest to the boat) wrist. The blade is squared, or returned to the perpendicular before the catch.
Fours: A boat that seats four rowers, either coxed or not.
Head race: the primary style of racing in the autumn in North American and Europe (although there are some spring head races), head races are time-trial races in which crews compete to complete a set course—generally between 4k and 8k—in the shortest time possible within their age group (see “Master rower” below).
The most famous in the United States is the Head of the Charles Regatta rowed on Boston’s Charles River; the largest in North America is Canada’s Royal Canadian Henley in St. Catherine’s, Ontario; the most prestigious in the world is the Royal Henley Regatta (its first royal patron was Prince Albert the Prince Consort; now the patron is always the reigning Monarch) rowed at Henley on Thames in Oxfordshire; the longest non-insane head race that I’ve heard of is Melbourne’s 8.6k Head of the Yarra. The bug-nuts craziest head race is the Netherlands’ Ringvaart Regatta and is 100k. No. Just…no.
Juniors (novice, jv, and varsity): High-school rowers. Owing to the physical demands of the sport, rowers seldom start before high school.
Masters rower: a rower over twenty-seven years of age. The term ‘master’ in no way refers to skill. It’s also a catch-all term, as masters rowing is age handicapped.
Master refers to 27-35, then comes seniors, veterans, grand masters, etc. That said, there is a move away from terms toward Masters A (27-35), Masters B (36-42), Masters C (43-49), all the way up to Masters J (80+).
This may well be due to clarity, as these terms actually mean something concrete, as well as allowing for the addition of Masters AA (21-26). It was noticed a few years back that there was no category for rowers immediately out college. Rowing is the oldest varsity sport, dating back well before the Civil War in the United States and to the late eighteenth century in the United Kingdom (Eton College’s Monarch Boat Club and Windsor School’s Isis Club both existed by the 1790’s). AA was added by US Rowing within the last ten years. Um…duh?
The reality is that there is a very real and noticeable decline in physical ability roughly every five to seven years in this most intense of aerobic sports and we have a vested interest in retaining rowers. There’s a formula for calculating age handicaps over age 80, and since it’s a non-impact sport, people can essentially row until they die.
Octopod: This is the Sasquatch of rowing, an eight rigged for sculling. There’s no technical reason it couldn’t be done. It just isn’t.
On the paddle: the lightest of strokes, moving the boat but not at all fast. Also referred to as paddle pressure.
Pair: the smallest sweep boat, consisting of one port and one starboard rower.
Port: in nautical terminology, port refers to the left side of the boat, but since rowers sit backward relative to the direction of motion, port is the rower’s right side and a port rower’s oar sticks out to the right. A port rower’s outboard hand will be his or her left hand. Due to this reversal, sweep rowers lose the ability to tell right from left.
Quads (+/-): a sculling boat that seats four, either coxed or uncoxed. I’ve only ever seen and rowed a blind quad. These boats fly. Think of a clipper ship and you won’t be far off.
Ratio: Speed of the drive (when the oar’s in the water) vs. speed of the recovery (when the oar’s out of the water); a measure of the efficiency of the stroke. The boat is at its slowest at the moment the blade of the oar enters the water; the boat is at its fastest just after the blade leaves the water when it’s released. The faster the drive, the faster the boat goes. The slower the recovery, not only do the rowers have a chance to breathe, they don’t slow the boat with catching too soon.
River launch: launching from a river as opposed to a dock. Rowers carry the boat out into the water and climb in via the process described in Poz.
Rushing the slide: when rowers have abandoned any pretense at ratio (see ‘ratio,’ above) and rush up the slide toward the catch during the recovery. If you’re in front of a rower rushing the slide and attempting to maintain ratio you face 1) a very real chance of an oar handle to your kidneys 2) a subtle pressure to join the people behind you in rushing to main the ‘normal’ feel of the boat, because you can definitely feel the rowers crowding you from behind.
An example about why I’m almost never allowed to row stroke seat: a nice pace for a masters boat out for a pleasant morning’s row might be between 22 and 26 spm at perhaps half-pressure. That means 22-26 strokes/minute and roughly half the power one could exert (an extremely subjective measure), not so much that you’d would be exhausted before turning around, but you’d feel it when you stopped.
Then those rat bastards in the bow start rushing and no matter how much I grouse to the cox’n and how much she bitches them out for it, it does not good. Then I, being rather passive-aggressive, start dropping the stroke rating without telling anyone. Instead of 24 spm, we’re now rowing at 20, or even 18 (that’s pretty slow, but not as low as I take things in my single…sometimes I row at a 12-14 to challenge myself; super hard strokes, very long recovery). To maintain the all-important ratio, ideally you’d make each stroke more powerful and each recovery longer, but with this crew what it would do was make the slide-rushing so incredibly obvious that even those dullards would be forced to realize what they were doing, usually when their oars started hitting those of the rowers in front of them.
How is this avoided, you ask? By paying attention to stroke seat and to the rower immediately in front of you. Don’t zone out.
Sculls/sculling: Sculls are the oars used in sculling, from whence the practice of rowing in a small boat with two oars draws its name. Sculling is one of the two major forms of rowing, the other being sweep rowing.
Sequence: The rowing stroke is an essentially smooth circular process but can nonetheless be broken into parts: leg drive -> backswing -> arms -> arms -> backswing -> leg drive ad infinitum et ad nauseam.
Single: a boat seating one person and requiring sculls instead of sweep oars.
Slide: also known as the tracks, the parallel metal rails on which the seat travels during the stroke.
Squaring the blade: turning the blade perpendicular the water’s surface with a flick of the inboard (closest to the boat) wrist. Rowing on the square is 1) an exercise in frustration; 2) a drill to teach novice crews to control the oar handle on the recovery; 3) a way to show off by more advanced crews.
Starboard: in nautical terminology, the right-hand side of a boat, but since rowers sit backward relative to the direction of travel, a starboard rower’s oar will stick out to the rower’s left. A starboard rower’s outboard hand will be his or her right. Sweep rowers quickly lose the ability to tell left from right.
Stern deck: the back deck of the rowing shell. Also, where particularly hulking cox’ns sit. Your author has coxed boats one more than one occasion. Your author is also a foot taller and one hundred pounds heavier than the standard-issue cox’n. On such occasions, the bow of the boat generally doesn’t touch the water.
Stern pair: in sweep rowing, the rowers sitting at seven and eight who set the pace for the rest of the boat.
Stroke: 1) the act of taking a stroke. 2) the rower, generally port, who sets the pace for the boat.
Sweep rowing/sweeps: This is what you think of when you hear ‘rowing’—one rower, one larger oar, bigger boats, although a sweeps boat can be a single pair (one port and one starboard rower). No one really knows why it’s called sweep rowing, but the consensus is that you sweep the water along with your oar.
Taper: Tapering isn’t by any means unique to rowing, but it shows up from time to time in my work. The goal is to reduce the training volume but not the intensity. In other words, the workouts are shorter, but every bit as hard. This maintains blood volume—and oxygen-carrying capacity in this most aerobic of sports—but reduces fatigue and muscle damage ahead of competition.
Unisuit: the single-piece uniform of competitive rowers, generally worn by high school and collegiate rowers. Other than a slightly padded seat, a unisuit is indistinguishable from a wrestling singlet.
VO2-max: the amount of oxygen extracted per breath. Olympic-caliber rowers have the greatest VO2-max of any competitive athlete.
There are probably things I’ve left out, but hopefully this will be enough to help people navigate the rowing babble in Poz and ATISMIA and my other publications. I’ve tried to keep it to keep the esoterica to minimum, but inevitably something will shine through, and maybe that’s okay. Also, Google.
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ATISMIA makes the sixth novel I’ve set in and around a boathouse, and it’s at long last occurred to me that perhaps I should provide a glossary and commentary on the terms I’ve been using with such giddy abandon. While any of these could easily be looked up on the internet, you’ll never find my obnoxious inimitable commentary anywhere else.
The only pace is suicide pace, and today looks like a good day to die
+/- : This indicates whether or not a boat is steered by a cox’n or not., the + indicating the presence of the cox’n, the – indicating the cox’n’s absence. An uncoxed boat is usually referred to as a blind boat because its occupant(s) cannot see where s/he (in the case of a single) or they (in the case of a double, pair, or coxless quad or four) are going.
In terms of notation, a coxed four would be written as a 4+, while a coxless quad would be written as 4-. How do you tell the difference between a four and a quad? Ha! You don’t, except by context because they race in different events and because I’ve never heard of an uncoxed four in sweep rowing (see ‘Sweep rowing’ below)
At the ready/At the catch: Rowers sit at the catch position ready to take the first stroke as soon as the cox’n tells them to, or in the case of a single rower, as soon as the starting judge or ref makes the call (at the top or front of the slide, shins vertical, oar blades in the water).
Bisweptual: a switch-hitter, a rower who swings both ways, i.e. someone who rows both port and starboard in sweep rowing. What did you think it meant? I row both sides.
Blind boat: boats without cox’n, indicated on paper with the number of seats in a boat along with a minus sign, so when I’m in a blind quad, it would be indicated as a 4(-).
Bow ball: a small rubber ball affixed to the boat front that provides absolutely no protection in the event of collision if the boat is moving under any pressure stronger than paddle pressure.
Bow deck: the front deck. In a collision, it will collapse like an accordion.
Bow-loader: a coxed four in which the cox’n is seated in the bow facing forward instead of the stern. The cox’n is typically very close to the waterline and suffers greatly reduced visibility. The best cox’ns in bow-loaders quickly learn to tell what his or her rowers are doing by sound and by the motion of the boat, and will be the first to die in case of a collision. Bow-loaders are also called coffin ships, owing to the fact that in a collision the boat’s carbon-fiber hull will crumple like paper.
Bow pair: the two rowers sitting at one and two seat in a boat with four or more seats.
Bow princess: The poor sucker who rows bow. A certain amount of attitude is tolerated because whoever rows at bow will die in a collision and everyone knows it, unless it’s a bow-loader, in which case it’s the cox’n who’ll bite it and they’ve all got plenty of attitude as it is.
Bucket-rigged: in sweep rowing the standard configuration for rigging a coxed four (or an eight) is port-starboard-port-starboard stern to bow. But what if one of your starboards is your best stroke? Or what if you have an imbalance of power between your rowers? You can compensate for these by changing the configuration of the rigging on the boat.
For a starboard-stroked boat, it would look like starboard-port-port-starboard. Viewed from above, this might look a bit like a bucket. To compensate for more powerful rowers you’d change the rigging to adjust where they would be seated in the boat.
There’s not much point to bucket-rig an eight because there are more places to shift rowers to.
Catch: at the top or front of the slide when the blade of the oar catches the water.
Catching a crab: When a rower feathers the blade before it is fully extracted from the water, the current generated by the boat’s passing can grab the oar and pull it perpendicular to the hull, sometimes quite forcefully. When such a crab throws a rower from the boat, it is a called an ejection crab. The idea is that a crab has grabbed the blade of the oar. Google “ejection + crab” or “rowing + ejection + crab” for a video of this phenomenon.
Check it down: (chiefly American) A command to stop the boat’s forward motion by putting the oars in the water such that the oar blades are perpendicular to the surface of the water. The British equivalent is “Take the run off,” once again proving that the British can’t speak English.
Cox’n: God. Just ask him or her. To a cox’n, rowers are meat that moves the boat. Cox’ns in men’s and women’s crew have different personality types. Note, not male and female cox’ns, but whether or not they cox for men’s vs. women’s crew.
Men’s crew, male or female cox’n: “Is that how we row? No, goddamn it, it’s not! Pull your fucking oar through the water….stop sucking!”
Women’s crew with the same cox’n after practice: “Why did you say those things? I thought you were our friend?”
Before I’m accused of anything, that’s more or less a direct quote from one of the best cox’ns I’ve ever rowed for during a conversation about why she prefers to cox for men’s crews. Seriously, this woman is the oarsman whisperer and a true lady on land, but on the water? She’ll cut a bitch and her knife is a carbon-fiber racing shell.
Different crews, different personalities, different styles of coxing. Some people react better to verbal abuse than others. When I cox—and let me tell you, it’s hilarious to observe given my size, although I’m a decent cox’n—I generally ask what my crew prefers.
Eight: A coxed sweeps boat with eight rowers. This is the big time, the most powerful of the boats. One of these, rowed well and at full power, is a thing of beauty, and awe-inspiring to behold. If you get in its way when it’s at full power, it will fuck you up because it’s basically a dreadnought.
Note: You’ll notice that there’s no mention of coxed vs. blind eights. That’s because there are no blind eights. They move too fast and they’re too powerful to risk the health and safety of both the crew and anyone who happens to be on the water around them. That’s not to say I haven’t rowed in one…
Engine room: Seats three through six in an eight. They have a lower impact on the set of the boat than the bow pair or stern pair. This is where you put the big, muscular guys who can’t hold a beat. I generally row in the engine room, usually at five or six.
Ergometer (or erg): a rowing machine that mimics the rowing stroke. While there are other models, the Concept-2 indoor rower has a virtual monopoly in the United States and for good reason…the others suck. The C2 uses air to create resistance. I’ve liked using a water-rowers—uses water, rather than air, to create resistance—to rowing a toilet bowl.
Erg testing: Rowing a set distance for time, or a set time for distance, to see which rower wins.
Feathering/feather the blade: On fully extracting the blade from the water, the rower turns the blade parallel to water with a flick of the inboard (closest to the boat) wrist. The blade is squared, or returned to the perpendicular before the catch.
Fours: A boat that seats four rowers, either coxed or not.
Head race: the primary style of racing in the autumn in North American and Europe (although there are some spring head races), head races are time-trial races in which crews compete to complete a set course—generally between 4k and 8k—in the shortest time possible within their age group (see “Master rower” below).
The most famous in the United States is the Head of the Charles Regatta rowed on Boston’s Charles River; the largest in North America is Canada’s Royal Canadian Henley in St. Catherine’s, Ontario; the most prestigious in the world is the Royal Henley Regatta (its first royal patron was Prince Albert the Prince Consort; now the patron is always the reigning Monarch) rowed at Henley on Thames in Oxfordshire; the longest non-insane head race that I’ve heard of is Melbourne’s 8.6k Head of the Yarra. The bug-nuts craziest head race is the Netherlands’ Ringvaart Regatta and is 100k. No. Just…no.
Juniors (novice, jv, and varsity): High-school rowers. Owing to the physical demands of the sport, rowers seldom start before high school.
Masters rower: a rower over twenty-seven years of age. The term ‘master’ in no way refers to skill. It’s also a catch-all term, as masters rowing is age handicapped.
Master refers to 27-35, then comes seniors, veterans, grand masters, etc. That said, there is a move away from terms toward Masters A (27-35), Masters B (36-42), Masters C (43-49), all the way up to Masters J (80+).
This may well be due to clarity, as these terms actually mean something concrete, as well as allowing for the addition of Masters AA (21-26). It was noticed a few years back that there was no category for rowers immediately out college. Rowing is the oldest varsity sport, dating back well before the Civil War in the United States and to the late eighteenth century in the United Kingdom (Eton College’s Monarch Boat Club and Windsor School’s Isis Club both existed by the 1790’s). AA was added by US Rowing within the last ten years. Um…duh?
The reality is that there is a very real and noticeable decline in physical ability roughly every five to seven years in this most intense of aerobic sports and we have a vested interest in retaining rowers. There’s a formula for calculating age handicaps over age 80, and since it’s a non-impact sport, people can essentially row until they die.
Octopod: This is the Sasquatch of rowing, an eight rigged for sculling. There’s no technical reason it couldn’t be done. It just isn’t.
On the paddle: the lightest of strokes, moving the boat but not at all fast. Also referred to as paddle pressure.
Pair: the smallest sweep boat, consisting of one port and one starboard rower.
Port: in nautical terminology, port refers to the left side of the boat, but since rowers sit backward relative to the direction of motion, port is the rower’s right side and a port rower’s oar sticks out to the right. A port rower’s outboard hand will be his or her left hand. Due to this reversal, sweep rowers lose the ability to tell right from left.
Quads (+/-): a sculling boat that seats four, either coxed or uncoxed. I’ve only ever seen and rowed a blind quad. These boats fly. Think of a clipper ship and you won’t be far off.
Ratio: Speed of the drive (when the oar’s in the water) vs. speed of the recovery (when the oar’s out of the water); a measure of the efficiency of the stroke. The boat is at its slowest at the moment the blade of the oar enters the water; the boat is at its fastest just after the blade leaves the water when it’s released. The faster the drive, the faster the boat goes. The slower the recovery, not only do the rowers have a chance to breathe, they don’t slow the boat with catching too soon.
River launch: launching from a river as opposed to a dock. Rowers carry the boat out into the water and climb in via the process described in Poz.
Rushing the slide: when rowers have abandoned any pretense at ratio (see ‘ratio,’ above) and rush up the slide toward the catch during the recovery. If you’re in front of a rower rushing the slide and attempting to maintain ratio you face 1) a very real chance of an oar handle to your kidneys 2) a subtle pressure to join the people behind you in rushing to main the ‘normal’ feel of the boat, because you can definitely feel the rowers crowding you from behind.
An example about why I’m almost never allowed to row stroke seat: a nice pace for a masters boat out for a pleasant morning’s row might be between 22 and 26 spm at perhaps half-pressure. That means 22-26 strokes/minute and roughly half the power one could exert (an extremely subjective measure), not so much that you’d would be exhausted before turning around, but you’d feel it when you stopped.
Then those rat bastards in the bow start rushing and no matter how much I grouse to the cox’n and how much she bitches them out for it, it does not good. Then I, being rather passive-aggressive, start dropping the stroke rating without telling anyone. Instead of 24 spm, we’re now rowing at 20, or even 18 (that’s pretty slow, but not as low as I take things in my single…sometimes I row at a 12-14 to challenge myself; super hard strokes, very long recovery). To maintain the all-important ratio, ideally you’d make each stroke more powerful and each recovery longer, but with this crew what it would do was make the slide-rushing so incredibly obvious that even those dullards would be forced to realize what they were doing, usually when their oars started hitting those of the rowers in front of them.
How is this avoided, you ask? By paying attention to stroke seat and to the rower immediately in front of you. Don’t zone out.
Sculls/sculling: Sculls are the oars used in sculling, from whence the practice of rowing in a small boat with two oars draws its name. Sculling is one of the two major forms of rowing, the other being sweep rowing.
Sequence: The rowing stroke is an essentially smooth circular process but can nonetheless be broken into parts: leg drive -> backswing -> arms -> arms -> backswing -> leg drive ad infinitum et ad nauseam.
Single: a boat seating one person and requiring sculls instead of sweep oars.
Slide: also known as the tracks, the parallel metal rails on which the seat travels during the stroke.
Squaring the blade: turning the blade perpendicular the water’s surface with a flick of the inboard (closest to the boat) wrist. Rowing on the square is 1) an exercise in frustration; 2) a drill to teach novice crews to control the oar handle on the recovery; 3) a way to show off by more advanced crews.
Starboard: in nautical terminology, the right-hand side of a boat, but since rowers sit backward relative to the direction of travel, a starboard rower’s oar will stick out to the rower’s left. A starboard rower’s outboard hand will be his or her right. Sweep rowers quickly lose the ability to tell left from right.
Stern deck: the back deck of the rowing shell. Also, where particularly hulking cox’ns sit. Your author has coxed boats one more than one occasion. Your author is also a foot taller and one hundred pounds heavier than the standard-issue cox’n. On such occasions, the bow of the boat generally doesn’t touch the water.
Stern pair: in sweep rowing, the rowers sitting at seven and eight who set the pace for the rest of the boat.
Stroke: 1) the act of taking a stroke. 2) the rower, generally port, who sets the pace for the boat.
Sweep rowing/sweeps: This is what you think of when you hear ‘rowing’—one rower, one larger oar, bigger boats, although a sweeps boat can be a single pair (one port and one starboard rower). No one really knows why it’s called sweep rowing, but the consensus is that you sweep the water along with your oar.
Taper: Tapering isn’t by any means unique to rowing, but it shows up from time to time in my work. The goal is to reduce the training volume but not the intensity. In other words, the workouts are shorter, but every bit as hard. This maintains blood volume—and oxygen-carrying capacity in this most aerobic of sports—but reduces fatigue and muscle damage ahead of competition.
Unisuit: the single-piece uniform of competitive rowers, generally worn by high school and collegiate rowers. Other than a slightly padded seat, a unisuit is indistinguishable from a wrestling singlet.
VO2-max: the amount of oxygen extracted per breath. Olympic-caliber rowers have the greatest VO2-max of any competitive athlete.
There are probably things I’ve left out, but hopefully this will be enough to help people navigate the rowing babble in Poz and ATISMIA and my other publications. I’ve tried to keep it to keep the esoterica to minimum, but inevitably something will shine through, and maybe that’s okay. Also, Google.
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