CHAPTER VI.

THE c.o.xSWAIN AND STEERING.

The 'c.o.c.k-swain' wins his place chiefly on account of his weight, provided that he can show a reasonable amount of nerve and skill of hand. A c.o.xswain is seldom a very practical oarsman, although there have been special exceptions to this rule, e.g. in the case of T. H.

Marshall, of Exeter, Arthur Shadwell, of Oriel, and a few others. But if he has been any length of time at his trade he very soon picks up a very considerable theoretical knowledge of what rowing should be, and is able to do very signal service in the matter of instructing the men whom he pilots. When a youth begins to handle the rudder-lines there is often some considerable difficulty in inducing him to open his mouth to give orders of any sort. Even such biddings as to tell one side of oars to hold her, or another to row or to back-water, come at first falteringly from his lips. It is but natural that he should feel his own physical inferiority to the men whom he is for the moment required to order about so peremptorily, and diffidence at first tends to make him dumb. But he soon picks up his _role_ when he listens to the audacious orders and objurgations of rival pilots, and he is pleased to find that the qualities of what he might modestly consider to be impudence and arrogance are the very things which are most required of him, and for the display of which he earns commendation.

Having once found his tongue, he soon learns to use it. When there is a coach in attendance upon the crew, the pilot is not called upon to animadvert on any failings of oarsmen; but when the coach is absent the c.o.xswain is bound to say something, and, if he has his wits about him, he soon picks up enough to make his remarks more or less to the purpose.

The easiest detail on which he offers an opinion is that of time of oars. At first he feels guilty of 'cheek' in singing out to some oarsman of good standing that he is out of time. He feels as if he should hardly be surprised at a retort not to attempt to teach his grandmother; but, on the contrary, the admonition is meekly accepted, and the pilot begins at once to gain confidence in himself. Daily he picks up more and more theoretical knowledge; he notes what a coach may say of this or that man's faults, and he soon begins to see when certain admonitions are required. At least he can play the parrot, and can echo the coach's remarks when the mentor is absent, and before long he will have picked up enough to be able to discern when such a reproof is relevant and when it is not. In his spare time he often paddles a boat about on his own account, and this practice materially a.s.sists him in understanding the doctrines which he has to preach. As a rule, c.o.xswains row in very good form, when they row at all; and before their career closes many of them, though they have never rowed in a race, can teach much more of the science of oarsmanship than many a winning oar of a University race or of a Grand Challenge Cup contest.

A c.o.xswain is the lightest item in the crew, but unless he sits properly he can do much harm in disturbing the balance of a light boat. He should sit with a straight back; if he slouches, he has not the necessary play of the loins to adapt himself to a roll of the boat. He should incline just a trifle forward; the spring of the boat at each stroke will swing him forward slightly, and he will recoil to an equal extent on the recovery. His legs should be crossed under him, like a tailor on a shop-board, with the outside of each instep resting on the floor of the boat. He should hold his rudder-lines just tight enough to feel the rudder. If he hangs too much weight upon them, he may jam the tiller upon the pin on which it revolves, so that, when the rudder has been put on and then taken off, the helm does not instantly swing back to the exact _status quo ante_; and in that case the calculation as to course may be disturbed, and a counter pull from the other line become necessary, in order to rectify the course.

A c.o.xswain will do best to rest his hand lightly on either gunwale, just opposite to his hips. He should give the lines a turn round his palms, to steady the hold on them. Many c.o.xswains tie a loop at the required distance, and slip the thumb through it; but such a loop should not be knotted too tight, for when rudder-lines get wet they shrink; so that a loop which was properly adjusted when the line was dry will be too far behind in event of the strings becoming soaked.

When a c.o.xswain desires to set a crew in motion, the usual formula is to tell the men to 'get forward,' then to ask if they are 'ready,' and then to say 'go,' 'row,' or 'paddle,' as the case may be. When he wishes to stop the rowing, without otherwise to check the pace of the boat, the freshwater formula is 'easy all,' at which command the oars are laid flat on the water. In the navy the equivalent term is 'way enough.'

'Easy all' should be commanded at the beginning, or at latest at the middle, of a stroke, otherwise it is difficult for the men to stop all together and to avoid a half-commencement of the next stroke.

If a boat has to be suddenly checked and her way stopped, the order is 'Hold her all.' The blades are then slightly inclined towards the bow of the boat, causing them to bury in the water, and at the same time not to present a square surface to back-water. The handle of the oar should then be elevated, and more and more so as the decreasing way enables each oarsman to offer more surface resistance to the water. So soon as the way of the boat has been sufficiently checked, she can be backed or turned, according to what may be necessary in the situation.

In turning a long racing-boat care should be taken to do so gently, otherwise she may be strained. If there is plenty of room, she can be turned by one side of oars 'holding' her, while bow, and afterwards No.

3 also, paddle her gently round. If there is not room for a wide turn, then stroke and No. 6 should back water gently, against bow, &c.

paddling.

A c.o.xswain, when he first begins his trade, is pleased to find how obedient his craft is to the touch of his hand; he pulls one string and her head turns that way; he takes a tug at the other line, and she reverses her direction. The ease with which he can by main force bring her, somehow or other, to the side of the river on which he desires to be tends at first to make him overlook how much extra distance he unnecessarily covers by rough-and-ready hauling at the lines.

'Argonaut'[7] very lucidly uses the expression 'a boat should be _coaxed_ by its rudder,' a maxim which all pilots will do well to make a cardinal point in their creed.

[7] Mr. E. D. Brickwood.

When a boat is once pointing in a required direction, and her true course is for the moment a straight one, the pilot should note some landmark, and endeavour to regulate his bows by aid of it, keeping the mark dead ahead, or so much to the right or to the left as occasion may require. In so doing he should feel his lines, and, so to speak, 'balance' his bows on his _point d'appui_. His action should be somewhat a.n.a.logous to what the play of his hand would be if he were attempting to carry a stick end upwards on the tip of his finger. He would quickly but gently antic.i.p.ate the declination denoted by each wavering motion of the stick, checking each such deviation the moment it is felt. In like manner when steering he should, as it were, 'hold' his bows on to his steering point, regulating his boat by gentle and timely touches; if he allows a wide deviation to occur, before he begins to correct his course, he has then a wide _detour_ to make before he can regain his lost position. All this means waste of distance and of rowing energy on the part of the crew.

In steering by a distant landmark the c.o.xswain must bear in mind that the parallax of the distant mark increases as he nears it; so that what may point a true course to him, for all intents and purposes, when it is half a mile away, may lead him too much to one side or other if he clings to it too long without observing its altered bearing upon his desired direction.

When a c.o.xswain has steered a course more than once he begins to know his landmarks and their bearing upon each part of the course. There is less strain upon his mind, and he becomes able to observe greater accuracy. There is nothing like having the 'eye well in' for any scene of action. A man plays relatively better upon a billiard-table or lawn-tennis ground to which he is well accustomed than on one to which he is a stranger; and a jockey rides a horse all the better for having crossed him before the day of a race. However good a c.o.xswain may be, he will steer a course more accurately, on the average, in proportion as he knows it more or less mechanically.

There is also a good deal in knowing the boat which has to be steered.

No two ships steer exactly alike. Some come round more easily than others; some fetch up into the wind more freely than others. In modern times it has been a common practice for builders to affix a movable 'fin' of metal to the bottom of a racing eight or four, under the after canvas, which fin can be taken out or fixed in at option. In a cross wind this helps to steady the track of a boat; but, unless wind is strong and is abeam for a good moiety of the distance, the draw of the water all the way occasioned by the fin costs more than the extra drag of rudder which it obviates for just one part of the course.

In steering round a corner a c.o.xswain should bear in mind that he must not expect to see his boat pointing in the direction to which he desires to make. His boat is a tangent to a curve, the curve being the sh.o.r.e.

His bows will be pointing to the sh.o.r.e which he is avoiding. It is the position of his midship to the sh.o.r.e which he is rounding that he should especially note. The boat should be brought round as gradually as the severity of the wave will allow. If the curve is very sharp, like the corners of the 'Gut' at Oxford, or 'Gra.s.sy' or Ditton corners at Cambridge, the inside oars should be told to row light for a stroke or two. It will ease their labour, and also that of the oars on the other side.

When there is a stiff beam wind the bows of a racing craft tend to bear up into the wind's eye. The vessel is making leeway all the time; therefore if the c.o.xswain on such an occasion steers by a landmark which would guide him were the water calm, he will before long find himself much to leeward of where he should be. In order to maintain his desired course he should humour his boat, and allow her bow to hold up somewhat into the wind (to windward of the landmark which otherwise would be guiding him). To what extent he should do so he must judge for himself, according to circ.u.mstances and to his own knowledge of the leeward propensities of his boat. To lay down a hard-and-fast rule on this point would be as much out of place as to attempt to frame a scale of allowance which a Wimbledon rifleman ought to make for mirage or cross-wind, when taking aim at a distant bull's-eye.

Generally speaking a c.o.xswain should hug the sh.o.r.e when going against tide or stream, and should keep in mid-stream when going with it.

(Mid-stream does not necessarily imply mid-river.) Over the Henley course, until 1886, a c.o.xswain on the Berks side used to make for the shelter of the bank below Poplar Point, where the stream ran with less force. The alteration (for good) of the Henley course which was inaugurated in 1886 has put an end to this, and both racing crews now take a mid-stream course. The course is to all intents and purposes straight, and yet it will not do to keep the bows fixed on one point from start to finish. There is just a fraction of curve to the left in it, but so slight that one finger's touch of a line will deflect a boat to the full extent required. The church tower offers a landmark by which all pilots can steer, keeping it more or less to the right hand of the bows, and allowing for the increase of its parallax as the boat nears her goal.

Over the Putney water the best course has changed considerably during the writer's personal recollections. Twenty years ago the point entering to Horse Reach, and opposite to Chiswick Church, could be taken close.

The Conservancy dredged the bed of the river, and also filled up a bight on the Surrey sh.o.r.e. This transferred the channel and the strongest current to the Middles.e.x side. In 1866 a head wind (against flood tide) off Chiswick raised the higher surf near to the towpath, showing that the main stream flowed there. It now runs much nearer to the Eyot.

Also the removal of the centre arch of old Putney Bridge drew the main flood tide more into mid-river than of old; and since then the new bridge has been built and the old one altogether removed, still further affecting the current in the same direction. There is a noticeable tendency in the present day, on the part of all pilots, whether in sculling matches or in eight-oar races, to take Craven Point too wide and to bear off into the bay opposite, on the Surrey sh.o.r.e. The course should be kept rather more mid-stream than of old, up to Craven steps, but the point should be taken reasonably close when rounding; there should not be, as has often been seen during the last six years, room for a couple more boats to race between the one on the Fulham side and the Craven bank.

In old days, when Craven Point used to be taken close, and when the set of the tide lay nearer to it than now, there ensued an important piece of pilotage called 'making the shoot.' It consisted in gradually sloping across the river, so as to take the Soapworks Point at a tangent, and thence to make for the Surrey arch of Hammersmith Bridge.

This 'shoot' is now out of place: firstly, because the tide up the first reach from the start of itself now tends to bring the boat more into mid-river off the Gra.s.s Wharf and Walden's Wharf; secondly, because the Soapworks Point should now be taken _wide_, and not close. The reason for this latter injunction is that the races of to-day, by agreement, go through the centre arch of Hammersmith Bridge. Now the flood tide does not run through the bridge at right angles to the span. It is working hard across to the Surrey sh.o.r.e. Therefore, if a boat hugs Soapworks Point as of old, and as if the course lay through the sh.o.r.e arch, that boat will have to come out, _across_ tide, at an angle of about 25 to the set of the tide, in order to fetch the outer arch and to clear the b.u.t.tress and the steamboat pier. Year after year the same blunder is seen. Pilots, of sculling boats and of eight-oars alike, wander away to the Surrey bay off Craven; then they hug the sh.o.r.e till they reach the Soapworks foot-bridge, and then they have to cross half the tide on their right before they can safely point for the outer arch of the Suspension Bridge. A pilot should endeavour to keep in mid-river off Rosebank and the Crab Tree, and after pa.s.sing the latter point he will, while pointing his bows well to the right of the arch which he intends to pa.s.s under, find the river move to the left under him, until, with little or no use of rudder, he finds himself in front of his required arch just as he reaches the bridge.

After pa.s.sing the bridge a boat should keep straight on for another two hundred yards, else it will get into dead water caused by the eddy of the Surrey pier. At Chiswick the course may be taken wide (save and except, as in all cases, where force of wind alters circ.u.mstances). The main tide runs nearest to Chiswick Eyot. Horse Reach should be entered in mid-river; there is little or no tide on the Surrey point below it.

Making for Barnes Bridge, the boat should keep fairly near to the Middles.e.x sh.o.r.e--how near depends upon whether the race is ordained to pa.s.s through the centre or the Middles.e.x arch of Barnes Bridge. Once through Barnes Bridge, the course should sheer in (if the centre arch has been taken) until the boat lies as if it had taken the sh.o.r.e arch.

It should attain this position by the time it b.r.e.a.s.t.s the 'White Hart.'

The river is here a horseshoe to the finish. In linear measure a boat on the Middles.e.x side has nearly two lengths less to travel than the one outside it between Barnes Bridge and the 'Ship.' The tide runs nearly as well within sixty feet of the sh.o.r.e as in mid-river at this point, hence it pays to keep about that distance from the Middles.e.x bank.

The old Thames watermen who instruct young pilots over the Putney course are often inclined to run too much in the grooves which were good in their younger days, when they themselves were racing on the river. Their instruction would be sound enough if the features of the river had not undergone change, as aforesaid, in sundry details. The repeated blunders of navigation lately seen perpetrated by watermen as well as amateurs between Craven Steps and Hammersmith make us lose much faith in watermen's tuition for steering the metropolitan course. We would rather entrust a young pilot to some active member of the London or Thames Rowing Clubs. These gentlemen know the river well enough as it now is, and are not bia.s.sed by old memories of what it once was but is no longer.

University c.o.xswains have easier tasks in these days than their predecessors before 1868. Until the Thames Conservancy obtained statutory powers in 1868 to clear the course for boat-racing, it used to be a ticklish matter to pick a safe course on a flood tide. There would be strings of barges towed, and many more sailing, others 'sweeping,' up river. Traffic did not stop for sport. c.o.xswains often found themselves in awkward predicaments to avoid such itinerant craft, more so when barges were under sail against a head wind, and were tacking from sh.o.r.e to sh.o.r.e. In 1866 a barge of this sort most seriously interfered with the Cambridge crew in Horse Reach, just when Oxford had, after a stern race, given them the go-by off the Bathing-place. It extinguished any chance which might have been left for Cambridge.

In the preceding year C. R. W. Tottenham immortalised himself by a great _coup_ with a barge. She was tacking right across his course (Oxford had just gone ahead after having been led by a clear length through Hammersmith Bridge). This was just below Barnes Bridge. Many a pilot would have tried to go round the bows of that barge. At the moment when she shaped her course to tack across tide there seemed to be ample room to pa.s.s in front of her. Tottenham never altered his course, and trusted to his own calculations. Presently the barge was broadside on to Oxford's bows, and only a few lengths ahead. Every one in the steamers astern stood aghast at what seemed to be an inevitable smash. The barge held on, and so did Oxford, and the barge pa.s.sed clear away just before Oxford came up. Even if she had hung a little, in a lull of wind, it would have been easy for Oxford to deflect a trifle and pa.s.s under her stern. Anything was better than attempting to go round her bows, which at first seemed to be the simplest course to spectators not experts at pilotage. It must be admitted that so much nerve and judgment at a pinch have never before or since been displayed by any c.o.xswain in a University match. Tottenham had his opportunity and made the most of it.

He steered thrice afterwards, but even if he had never steered again he had made his reputation by this one _coup_. In justice to other crack c.o.xswains, such as Shadwell and Egan of old, and, _par excellence_, G.

L. Davis in the present day, we must a.s.sume that if they had been similarly tried they would have been equally triumphant.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FEATHER 'UNDER' THE WATER.]

CHAPTER VII.

SLIDING SEATS.

I. THEIR ORIGIN.

When sliding seats were first used they completely revolutionised oarsmanship, and caused old coaches whose names were household words to stand aghast at the invention.

The best use of them was but imperfectly realised by those who first adopted them; and many of the earliest examples of sliding-seat oarsmanship were sufficiently unorthodox, according to our improved use of them in the present day, to justify the declaration of more than one veteran whose opinion was always respected that--'if that is sliding, it is not rowing.'

The mechanical power gained by a sliding seat is so great that even if he who uses it sets at defiance all recognised principles of fixed-seat rowing, he can still command more pace than if he adhered to fixed-seat work. It was the spectacle, in earlier days of the slide, of this unorthodox sliding style beating good specimens of fixed-seat oarsmanship which so horrified many of the retired good oarsmen of the fixed-seat school. Before long the true use of the slide became better understood, and thus oarsmen--at all events scientific amateurs--began to realise that, while bad sliding could manage to command more pace than good fixed rowing, yet at the same time good sliding (which will be explained hereafter) will beat bad sliding by even more than the latter can distance good fixed-seat work.

Just a similar sort of prejudice was displayed against the earlier style of rowing in keelless boats. When these craft first came in, oarsmen had little or no idea of 'sitting' them; they rolled helplessly, and lost all form, but nevertheless they travelled faster in the new craft than when rowing in good style in old-fashioned iron-shod keeled boats. In a season or two style rea.s.serted itself, and it was found that it was by no means impossible to row in as neat a shape in a keelless boat as in a keeled one.

Sliding on the seat had been practised long before the sliding seat was invented, but only to a modified extent. Robert Chambers of St.

Antony's, the quondam champion, tried it now and then, and when preparing for his 1865 match with Kelley he used to slide a trifle, especially for a spurt, and to grease his seat to facilitate his operations. Jack Clasper, according to Mr. E. D. Brickwood's well-known treatise on Boat-racing, used to slide to a small extent on a fixed seat when he rowed in a Newcastle four which won on the Thames in 1857. Of this detail the writer has himself no recollection. Also, in 1867, a Tyne sculler, Percy, tried sliding on a fixed seat in a sculling match against J. Sadler on the Thames (so Mr. Brickwood relates). But none of these earlier sliders made much good out of their novelty. The strain on the legs caused by the friction on the seat prevented the oarsman from maintaining the action for long, and meantime it took so much out of him that it prematurely exhausted his whole frame.

In 1870 Renforth's champion four used to slide on the seat for a spurt, but not for a whole course. They beat the St. John's Canadian crew very easily while so rowing in a match at Lachine, but we believe that they would have won with about as much ease had they rowed on fixed seats. In the same year a 'John o' Gaunt' four from Lancaster came to Henley Regatta and rowed in this fashion, sliding on fixed seats. They had very little body swing, and their style showed all the worst features of the subsequent style which became too common when sliding seats were first established. They did almost all their work by the piston action of the legs, and their limbs tired under the strain at the end of three or four minutes. They led a light crew of Oxford 'Old Radleians' by three lengths past Fawley Court, and then began to come back to them. The Oxonians steadily gained on them, but had to come round outside them at the Point, and could never get past them, losing the race by less than a yard. Enough was seen on this occasion to convince oarsmen that the Lancastrian style was only good for half-mile racing. In the final heat for the Stewards' fours a good L.R.C. crew beat the Lancastrians with ease after going half a mile. The Radleians would doubtless have also gone well by the Lancastrians had the course been a hundred yards longer.

So far the old fixed seat had vindicated itself for staying purposes.

But in the following year a problem was practically solved. It seems that (so Mr. Brickwood tells us) an oarsman comparatively unknown to fame, one Mr. R. O. Birch, had used an actual sliding seat at King's Lynn Regatta in 1870. Mr. Brickwood seems to have been the only writer who took cognisance of this interesting fact. University men and tideway amateurs, also professionals so far as we can gather, seem not to have heard of, or at least not to have heeded, the experiment. Had Mr. Birch been a leading sculler of the day, possibly the innovation might have been adopted earlier than it was.

Meantime in America the sliding seat had been better known, but had not been appreciated. Mr. Brickwood tells us that a Mr. J. C. Babc.o.c.k, of the Na.s.sau Boat Club, constructed a sliding seat as long ago as 1857.

Also that W. Brown, the American sculler, tried one in 1861, but abandoned it. In 1869 Mr. Babc.o.c.k once more devoted himself to the study and construction of sliding seats, and brought out a six-oared crew rowing on slides. But the invention did not obtain much recognition, although Mr. Babc.o.c.k was of opinion that his crew gained in power of stroke through the new apparatus.