Boat People [rowing]
Sep. 25th, 2022 06:17 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rebeccmeisterYesterday I volunteered to help our local Irish Currach Club with their annual regatta, by driving a chase boat for them. It was really fun and also interesting to see how they manage their regattas compared to our "skinny boat" regattas, as they put them. The North American Currach Association's member organizations all row currachs made with a wood frame covered in stretched canvas, made watertight with paint. The other way of distinguishing them from us would be to call their style 'fixed-seat' rowing as compared to our 'sliding-seat' rowing. They also row with very differently-shaped oars, because currachs are more of a coastal surf boat where a large oar blade can be problematic due to the blade catching in the surf. In addition, rather than a rigger with a swiveling oarlock, their wooden oars have a wooden oarlock that fits over a metal pin.
To top it all off, they don't fuss over having boats of different sizes for events with different numbers of rowers. They just seat the appropriate number of people, up to four, depending on the event. It was interesting to observe that the rower placement in each boat varied sometimes across events, although for one-person races it looked like 2 seat was consistently the favored seat.
The overall style of race is something I would describe as being closer to a 'stake race' than other styles of sliding-seat races (unidirectional head races and sprint races). The racecourse is structured around a set of 3 buoys. Crews line up and start at the center buoy, start together, then race from the start line to one of the end buoys, circle around the end buoy, and race back towards the start buoy. If they're rowing a short course (typical for one-person and two-person events), the finish line will be back at the start buoy for a total of around 1000m. If they're rowing a long course, they will continue past the start buoy to the third buoy, circle around it, then return back to the start, thereby having completed one lap around an oval, more or less (probably a bit over 2000m).
Currachs are much more maneuverable than skinny boats, because of their shape and lack of a keel or skeg. This is both good and bad; at one point we watched a crew having an extremely difficult time keeping their boat on any kind of heading whatsoever, so it clearly can take a ton of skill and precision to row currachs. On the other hand, the currachs can round corners much more sharply than we can, and I could see the maneuverability being useful for some of the intended working uses of the vessels.
I managed to film one entire race while my teammate W piloted the launch, viewable here, although I'll note this has a bit of the air of most rowing regatta footage where it's challenging to see all the action:
I think some of the photos I took during the one-man race are some of my favorites. These are all after having rounded the first buoy on the way back to the finish line:
The eventual winner, demonstrating some major layback:
One of the other benefits of reusing the same boats for all the races, is that basically every race was a boat hotseat. So between events, the boats would all return to the dock, the spent rowers would pour out, and the fresh(er) rowers would jump in for the next race.
The approach to rules and whatnot was also interesting. Sliding-seat rowing is, admittedly, a bit uptight when it comes to things like rules and schedules. In contrast, it looked to me like the currach rowers work out some of the rules among themselves while out on the water. In the very first race, we watched a kerfuffle between two four-man boats that sent both boats well off course at the first buoy. As you can imagine, there's ample opportunity for boats to clash oars and interlock on the approach to the buoys. Once they got free of each other, both boats did make their way back over to properly circle around the buoy in the correct direction and finish out the race, finishing in second to last and last place when all was said and done. With whatever happened in that event, it sure looked like there was some desire for vengeance on the part of one of the crews, because in a later four-person race that crew appeared to make a direct heading towards the other crew again in such a way as to sabotage the other crew's efforts to get a good line going around the first turn. I have no idea what the conversation sounded like back on shore, but that's what we saw on the water.
It also looked like crews that got ahead to the first turn buoy typically had a good advantage down the rest of the course.
I can really appreciate this whole approach to the sport. I think it's actually better in tune with the history of the sport of rowing as compared to sliding-seat rowing; more no-frills working-class equipment and rules compared to the expensive and aristocratic equipment and rule sets now favored by sliding-seat rowing.
It was also a much more alcoholic event, for what that's worth, but I did really appreciate that at the end of the day, all the teams gathered together for a shared dinner and awards celebration. There are things to be learned from their event in terms of putting on a good event for everybody to enjoy. The social aspect matters.
And at the end of the day, boat people are all still boat people. There were even a couple of rowers there who do both fixed-seat AND sliding-seat rowing, who were fun to encounter. And members of the Boston crew who came out to do the marathon row remembered me and were really glad to catch up.
I don't think I'm ready to completely give up sliding-seat rowing, but the regatta definitely strengthened my resolve to take my rowing in a more adventurous direction in the future. And I was glad to be able to help out one of our home teams as a show of goodwill. Life is better when we work together.
To top it all off, they don't fuss over having boats of different sizes for events with different numbers of rowers. They just seat the appropriate number of people, up to four, depending on the event. It was interesting to observe that the rower placement in each boat varied sometimes across events, although for one-person races it looked like 2 seat was consistently the favored seat.
The overall style of race is something I would describe as being closer to a 'stake race' than other styles of sliding-seat races (unidirectional head races and sprint races). The racecourse is structured around a set of 3 buoys. Crews line up and start at the center buoy, start together, then race from the start line to one of the end buoys, circle around the end buoy, and race back towards the start buoy. If they're rowing a short course (typical for one-person and two-person events), the finish line will be back at the start buoy for a total of around 1000m. If they're rowing a long course, they will continue past the start buoy to the third buoy, circle around it, then return back to the start, thereby having completed one lap around an oval, more or less (probably a bit over 2000m).
Currachs are much more maneuverable than skinny boats, because of their shape and lack of a keel or skeg. This is both good and bad; at one point we watched a crew having an extremely difficult time keeping their boat on any kind of heading whatsoever, so it clearly can take a ton of skill and precision to row currachs. On the other hand, the currachs can round corners much more sharply than we can, and I could see the maneuverability being useful for some of the intended working uses of the vessels.
I managed to film one entire race while my teammate W piloted the launch, viewable here, although I'll note this has a bit of the air of most rowing regatta footage where it's challenging to see all the action:
I think some of the photos I took during the one-man race are some of my favorites. These are all after having rounded the first buoy on the way back to the finish line:
The eventual winner, demonstrating some major layback:
One of the other benefits of reusing the same boats for all the races, is that basically every race was a boat hotseat. So between events, the boats would all return to the dock, the spent rowers would pour out, and the fresh(er) rowers would jump in for the next race.
The approach to rules and whatnot was also interesting. Sliding-seat rowing is, admittedly, a bit uptight when it comes to things like rules and schedules. In contrast, it looked to me like the currach rowers work out some of the rules among themselves while out on the water. In the very first race, we watched a kerfuffle between two four-man boats that sent both boats well off course at the first buoy. As you can imagine, there's ample opportunity for boats to clash oars and interlock on the approach to the buoys. Once they got free of each other, both boats did make their way back over to properly circle around the buoy in the correct direction and finish out the race, finishing in second to last and last place when all was said and done. With whatever happened in that event, it sure looked like there was some desire for vengeance on the part of one of the crews, because in a later four-person race that crew appeared to make a direct heading towards the other crew again in such a way as to sabotage the other crew's efforts to get a good line going around the first turn. I have no idea what the conversation sounded like back on shore, but that's what we saw on the water.
It also looked like crews that got ahead to the first turn buoy typically had a good advantage down the rest of the course.
I can really appreciate this whole approach to the sport. I think it's actually better in tune with the history of the sport of rowing as compared to sliding-seat rowing; more no-frills working-class equipment and rules compared to the expensive and aristocratic equipment and rule sets now favored by sliding-seat rowing.
It was also a much more alcoholic event, for what that's worth, but I did really appreciate that at the end of the day, all the teams gathered together for a shared dinner and awards celebration. There are things to be learned from their event in terms of putting on a good event for everybody to enjoy. The social aspect matters.
And at the end of the day, boat people are all still boat people. There were even a couple of rowers there who do both fixed-seat AND sliding-seat rowing, who were fun to encounter. And members of the Boston crew who came out to do the marathon row remembered me and were really glad to catch up.
I don't think I'm ready to completely give up sliding-seat rowing, but the regatta definitely strengthened my resolve to take my rowing in a more adventurous direction in the future. And I was glad to be able to help out one of our home teams as a show of goodwill. Life is better when we work together.
