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Rowing Glossary
What is rowing?
In short, it’s the most beautiful and the most grueling sport you will
ever watch. It’s also a sport that
builds character, physical strength, endurance, coordination,
self-confidence and cooperative
skills…a sport that pushes our athletes to the limit of their strength and
demonstrates the very
best meaning of the word “team.” It’s a sport that seems to bring out the
best
in our kids.
General
Information
The boats that
are used are called shells. Shells have all sorts of interesting parts, too.
If
 you look down into
the shell, you see some rather ratty looking sneakers that are bolted to
the boat on footstretchers, and a shaped wooden seat that moves on a slide.
The rowers
actually rig the boats, putting in the seats and the
riggers.
The art of rigging has as its purpose making
the boat as fast as possible. The riggers are metal frames projecting out
from the shell, with oarlocks
on the end. Each oarlock has a gate. This is what keeps the oar in a good
position for rowing. A loose
oarlock will let the oar wiggle and be hard to control; one that’s too tight
restricts
the movement of the oar. Rowers also sometimes adjust the
pitch of
the oarlock (the angle at which the oarlock allows the
oar to meet the
water).
Then
there are gunwales (pronounced gun-nulls). These are the parts of the
frame
perpendicular to the water to
which the riggers are attached. Gunwales are
used by the oarsmen
to hold onto the shell while it’s inverted. If you hear that your child has
been “walking the
gunwales,” it means they were standing up in the boat out in the water,
usually
to change seats
during a practice. All of the rowers contribute to the set of the boat,
meaning they all help
balance it and hold it steady.
Good rowers make rowing
look easy, but in reality, it’s not that easy. A good row is very fluid,
very smooth, and continuous. The end of one stroke and the beginning of
another blend.
Rowers are synchronized. Strokes are timed at the catch to maintain the
maximum speed of the
shell. The oars all feather at the same time and there is no splashing.
Blades when out of the water are
at the same height, and when in the water are at the same depth.
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