Got down to the boathouse in better time this time, but
thought that novices weren't on because there was hardly anyone there. My
friend Fran wasn't there, after having said she'd make a super effort to come
down before taking off for Majorca that afternoon for a hen's week (much better
than a hen's night). A Canadian girl called Angela took me and a Spanish girl
called Andrea onto the ergs and we had a bit of a practice. That went OK.
Angela told us to lift up our arms at 'backstops', but then told me my arms
were too high so I put them back where they'd been and she was happy. We were
supposed to be rowing in unison, but Andrea wasn't taking long enough on her
recovery (the slide back to the front), so I didn't follow her. She started to
follow me, and it went much better.
As we'd been practising, other people had put a four into
the water, and two other people were nearby, ready to go out. Andrea had wanted
to go on stroke side (port), and I'd wanted to go on bow side (starboard),
having been on stroke the week before. Somehow, she ended up in bow, and I
ended up at 2 on stroke side. Didn't matter that much. This boat at least had
strap arrangements that meant we could keep our shoes on. The cox we had was a
girl called Melissa who professed to be from Adelaide but had a very British
accent. I was worried about the backs of my legs copping it again, so she
helped me to raise the foot stretchers above any protruding structures. I wish
now I'd also adjusted the stretchers back towards me, but you'll find out why
later.
We got ready to go without incident, but I was so thoroughly
disoriented about which way the boat was going to go that I put my blade in
upside down. I was soon set straight and we took off upstream, I think with the
stern pair rowing. The four was much less stable than the eight was, made more
difficult by the fact that the guy in stroke was quite short (and undergoing
the same problem as I had the week before with copping a wooden strut in the
back of the legs), and the guy in 3 was very tall with long legs. Consequently,
by the time the stroke guy got to full slide, the guy behind still had a way to
go and had to hurry to catch up, throwing the balance of the boat out quite
significantly. We got to the bridge before Jesus Lock and turned around. It's
so much easier to turn a four than an eight length-wise, but much harder to stabilise
it - with only two rowers in the middle of the boat to steady with their blades
flat on the water, and stroke backing it down and bow rowing, you can picture
why.
After this Andrea and I had a go in the bow. Again, I had to
set the tempo for our strokes and I took it quite slowly to avoid balance
problems like the other two had. Andrea followed me really well here and we got
a very good (albeit steady) motion going. Melissa actually taught us how to
feather properly, which is to turn the blade with your outside hand, and I had
it going quite well for a while. If you do it quickly and confidently enough,
the blade's squarish collar sort of clicks into the oarlock so you know it's in
the right place. I had no messy catches here which I was quite proud of. I
didn't feel very comfortable though - there seemed to be much less room in this
boat. I always felt like I was going to knock the guy in front, and Andrea knocked
me a few times. Also, I felt like I wasn't reaching forwards far enough and so
ended up with the blade in the tips of my fingers which wasn't very stable at
all.
We had a very experienced guy coaching us from the bank, and
that was really helpful, because the cox just can't see through that many
people - they can only judge what you're doing by the position of your blade.
Melissa said that what she saw of my blade was good, and it's true that I did
what I had to do, it just didn't feel like I was driving with my legs properly
or leaning back at the right time. It felt like I was driving much too much
with my arms. I think if I take the time to move the foot stretchers back towards
my seat it'll be better. Angela told me that at full slide my hips should be
level with the middle strut of the rigger. That will help a lot.
We turned again at the downstream end (nowhere near as far
up as we'd gone the week before) and the stern pair led us off again. Halfway
down, Melissa had the bow pair join in. It was a disaster - the balance went
all to hell and Andrea missed the rhythm completely because she was trying to
follow stroke's blade instead of the body movements of the people in front of
her. I think we went in just after this. It was a very short session, which was
disappointing, but still useful.
Two other guys hopped into mine and Andrea's seats - one
very short and rather clueless French guy, and one tall, broad Australian guy
who looks alarmingly like David Beckham. Andrea and I followed the bank coach
up and down the river watching them and learning. David Beckham had to adjust
his foot stretchers after rowing a few yards, but after that they got moving.
With two tall guys and two short guys, the rhythm was really irregular, and
clueless French man kept doing dumb stuff like only half-sliding, and then
starting to slide before his hands/blade got over his knees, resulting in an
awful mess. Even David Beckham kept catching crabs and had both his knees up between
his hands instead of one. They went up and back about twice, then came in and
we all helped get the boat out. David Beckham asked me how I'd gone but we had
to concentrate on not dropping the boat before I could talk to him more.
It wasn't until we were taking the boat out that I realised
that the boat was called 'Freddie'. Not quite 'Boy Fred' I know, but quite
uncanny all the same. Luckily the same fate did not befall me as did my father.
In fact, apart from putting my blade in wrong, I did nothing really stupid this
time - which is heartening! We found out afterwards too that there'd been
another lighter four we could have taken out (our one was another wooden antique
that weighed a ton) but it would have been even less stable because it didn't
have a flat bottom like our boat. Scary.
I've come to the conclusion that the club has a lot of
non-English people in it. There are a couple of Kiwis and an Irishman as well
as the tribe I've described. It's very refreshing. I gave in to Andrea's cajoling
and went to the circuit 'gym class' they hold in the boathouse on Monday nights
for a few reasons – not the least of which is to get my face seen so I get
invited into a regular crew. It nearly killed me. I haven't done a circuit
class for around 8 years and they use quite heavy weights. At the time I was
keeping up with the aerobic side of it (surprisingly) and lifting all but the
huge squat barbell, and felt quite good afterwards, but my muscles are paying for
it now. And to add insult to injury, David Beckham wasn't even there! In fact,
on a bank holiday after a cold foul-weather-day, there was hardly anyone there.
Oh well, still glad I went. Had a chat to Mr Irishman.
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