Who Was The Model In 'The Young Rower'?

Earlier today one of HTBS’s popular entries, The Female Rower, 1930 Style! (posted on 3 October 2009) got an anonymous comment about the young lady in the painting. The comment reads: “I was looking for an image of this picture and came across your blog (through Google search) and analysis of the painting. The woman in the picture was my grandmother and her name was indeed Freda. She passed away in 2005 at the age of 95. She had a copy of this painting hanging in her flat in Twickenham (UK) for as long as I can remember. She worked as an artist’s model for much of her early life, sitting for people such as Captain Glasson, as well as Sir James Gunn. In fact, Sir James Gunn did two portraits of my grandmother, one complete, the other unfinished. My family still retains the originals (oil on canvas). She was 23 in this painting and yes, unmarried. She didn’t marry until 1941. Thank you for posting!”

This was a very nice surprise, and a nice little foot note both for the art world and the world of rowing history. Many thanks to Anonymous. If you happened to have more information to share about your grandmother I would be very happy to post it on HTBS!

See also entry on 20 December, 2010.

The Geometry Of Rowing

The Geometry of Rowing

He saw in the body
Of a gull the shape
Of a shell,
In the legs of an egret
The shape of oars.
Through his mind he had angled these
Into the shell he rowed.

Each time he rowed the water
He saw himself in flight,
A point on the radar screen of the cosmos.
He saw himself the radius of a circle,
A line through space.

To embody space, to connect himself
To the cosmos,
Underlaid his need to row. To feel
The pull of the water against his oars,
To feel the pull of water against his muscles,
Angled him
Between earth and heaven.

Philip Kuepper

John Biglin, The Hard-Assed Coach?

Rowing historian Bill Lanouette of Washington DC now and then sends an e-mail with some interesting facts. This morning, I received a photograph from him. The picture is showing the professional oarsman and coach John Biglin with the Amherst College crew in 1872. Bill writes, “Biglin glowers at the camera while his college boys seem to flit and flutter about. Under his savage training they won a race in a regatta in Springfield in 1872. Hard to believe from this photo.” Bill continues, “Doesn't Biglin look like a hard-assed coach? The press said his training methods were ‘decidedly savage’ and you can feel it in his glare.”

Indeed you can. Thank you for sharing this great photo with the readers of HTBS, Bill! The photograph is from Armherst College Archives.

Larry Gluckman Honored At Power Ten

I received an e-mail today from Evan Corcoran. He wondered if the readers of HTBS might have any interest of what happened at the Power Ten's annual black tie meeting on 20 January where Coach Larry Gluckman (on the right) was honored. Here is Evan's report:

The crowd of 250 included rowers from many different schools, with a strong showing from Trinity, where Larry also coached. Princeton was well represented. Michael Vatis was there. Other Princeton notables included Doug Burden, Chris Ahrens, Phil Jacobs, Coach Greg Hughes, Coach Dan Roock, Coach Joe Murtaugh, Juan Sabater, Tim Wray, and Paul Caminiti. David Huntington and Marty Crotty ran the show. I have surely missed others. It was not only the tallest crowd I have seen, but also the most spirited. Catcalls and dinner rolls flew, as the speakers soldiered on.

You will be pleased to know, however, that Larry received an ovation. His remarks focused on how the rowing community is a small world. The evening proved him right.

At the close of the night, a man approached who informed me that he had rowed in Navy's 1985 boat. He wanted to talk about the IRA finals: how we had to race at 6:00 am and how his boat was leading at 750 meters when a wake from a media launch stopped them dead in the water. I found it refreshing that for decades Princeton rowers have had to wake up before dawn to race in the chop in Annapolis, yet this would be his complaint.

The second person was a well-mannered Brit who rowed in the Grand at Henley in 1985, for the University of London Boat Club. He was in the boat that we overtook on the grandstand stretch in the semi-final. He also sat in my same seat. He told me that their crew felt confident going into the race, because they had beaten the U.S. pre-elite team in the quarter-final. (A team that went on to win a silver a week later in Lucerne). He also told me something I had not known: there were six Olympians in his boat. "You surprised us," he said.

Attached are my remarks from the evening, for those unable to attend the evening, please find my remarks here.

With best regards, M. Evan Corcoran

My warmest thanks to Evan for his nice report!

2010 FISA World Rowing Awards

The 2010 World Rowing Awards have just been announced and awarded, FISA writes in a press release. The honours have gone to New Zealand's head coach Dick Tonks, the Czech Republic's Men's Single Sculler Ondrej Synek, Great Britain's dynamic duo of Anna Watkins and Katherine Grainger from the Women's Double Sculls as well as the dominating adaptive rower Tom Aggar also of Great Britain. Hart Perry (on the left) of the United States is honoured with the Distinguished Service award for his long serving role in rowing.

Read more about these good rowing women and men by clicking here.

Read especially about Hart Perry - the 'Godfather of Rowing' - by clicking here.

'I Crew' - I Don't Think So...

Now, Andy Anderson, writing as 'Doctor Rowing' in the magazine Rowing News, is a man of my liking. In the latest issue of the mentioned magazine, of February 2011, he answers a question from 'Jim' about the word 'crew' in the sentence "I row crew" and in the expression 'crew team', which the signature 'Jim' finds preposterous. Andy, 'Doctor Rowing', agrees - good man, Andy, I say!

Some months back, I was involved in an e-mail discussion about using the word 'crew' as a verb. Strangely enough, that discussion was also initiated by a man called 'Jim'! (Probably the same fellow, I would imagine.)

The school I went to in Sweden taught us children British-English, instead of American-English, so when I moved to Connecticut ten years ago, I was convinced that ‘crewing’ was American-English for ‘rowing at an American college’ where they only row in eights and fours. But I now understand that it is not that easy. Early on you only ‘crewed’ at American upper-crust educational institutions, like Yale, Harvard, Penn, and the other Ivy League schools, while, for example, they practise ‘rowing’ at Trinity College in Hartford (their web site says ‘rowing’). In his article Andy mentions the example "My grandfather crewed at Yale".

It is true that the Ivy League schools’ practise of the word ‘crew’ has by now slipped down to the lower levels, smaller colleges, clubs, community rowing programmes, etc, and therefore more and more people are using ‘crewing’ as substitute for ‘rowing’ in America. However, after living here for ten years, I still have a problem with ‘crewing’ instead of ‘rowing’. In Britain they would never say ‘crewing’ for rowing at Oxford and Cambridge, nor would I. To me, ‘to crew’ can never be synonymous with to ‘row’ or the sport of rowing, because you would never say ‘crewing in a pair’, or would you? And my apologies all around as I am a foreigner in this country and my mother-tongue is not American-English, nor British-English, but Swedish (even some Swedes would disagree on this as I am from the south of Sweden with a strong dialect of its own). To me, using ‘crewing’ at certain times instead of ‘rowing’ is bad English, or at best, sloppy English that can confuse the listener or reader.

It can also, quite honestly, turn people off from continuing reading a text, at least that is what happened to me some months ago when I began reading an article in the Rowing News about one of the United States' most prominent female rowers, a world champion as a matter of fact, who was asked what she was doing for winter training. She answered: "I erg". I stopped reading right there!

Anyone interested in the expression 'crew team', should read what rowing historian Bill Miller has to say about that by clicking here.

Film Adaptation Of Renoir's Luncheon...

In an e-mail earlier today, Hélène Rèmond of France sends a link to a French TV film that was shown last Wednesday. It is an adaptation of Renoir's painting Luncheon of the Boating Party. Click here to get to the link, but hurry, it will only be up until Wednesday, January 26. (I have to confess that I had a problem with the link, but maybe it is at least working in Europe!)

My warmest thanks to Hélène for sharing!

List Of Gigs Worldwide

Another one of Hilary Moll's wonderful photographs of a gig.

Tim Koch followed up with another e-mail on gigs and gig rowing. He found a list of all gigs in the world! Go to the list by clicking on List of Gigs Worldwide.

Gig Rowing And Racing In America!

HTBS reader Caleb had a question the other day where to find gig rowing and racing in the USA? I was not able to help him, but of course the good HTBS correspondent in London, Tim Koch, had an answer, which he sent to me earlier today. So Caleb and everyone else in America interested in gigs, read on.... Tim writes,

"My item on Cornish Gig Racing on 9 January 2011 prompted a query from a gentleman in Indiana asking where such rowing could be found in the USA. There is a BBC Cornwall story on American gig clubs here.

It seems to be a New England based sport. The only club named is Team Saquish Rowing Club, Saquish Beach, Plymouth, in Massachusetts. Their email is: teamsaquish@comcast.net - and I'm sure they could direct interested parties to their nearest club if there is one.

According to the BBC, in 2007 there were 26 gigs spread over Massachusetts, Vermont, Maine, and Connecticut, with approximately 10 gig clubs."

The photograph above is from Team Saquish RC member Hilary Moll's photo site.

The Dragon Slaying Saint And A Cornish Pilot Gig Club

In an e-mail Tim Koch asks if I am related to Saint Göran. Good question! There is a famous wooden sculpture of St. Göran killing the dragon in Storkyrkan (The Great Church) in Stockholm. Of course, Göran is the Swedish for George; St George and the Dragon would be the English legend, I guess. Now, Tim is not asking me this because he suddenly became religious (he might be, but that is beside the point), no, instead he is interested in the 'rowing link' between me and the Cornish Pilot Gig Club called St. Goran Rowing Club. There is none, I'm afraid, but I would be very honoured if there was one!

Tim sends this very nice video of the club training (see below) and he writes:

"It is, I think, taken from one of the BBC's 'Coast' programmes. This is now in its fifth series and will appeal to anyone interested in boats and things maritime. It's premise is that, in Britain, you are never more than 72 miles form the sea. It is an example of the BBC at its intelligent best. DVDs are available from the BBC online shop

Back to St. Göran and me - nope, there is no connection between the good saint and me, although, there is actually a sword in the Buckhorn Family Coat of Arms.

HTBS's Tim Koch Visits The NMMC

After HTBS's Tim Koch's outing with the Falmouth Gig Club, told on 8-9 January 2011, he went indoors to visit the beautiful National Maritime Museum, Cornwall. Here is his report:

Following my visit to Falmouth Gig Club I visited their neighbour, the splendid National Martime Museum, Cornwall (NMMC). This purpose built museum overlooking the busy Falmouth waterfront is now twelve years old. It is the result of collaboration between the former Cornwall Maritime Museum, Falmouth, and the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich, London. For many years the latter had been looking for a dramatic waterfront location to show its important collection of historic small boats. Falmouth, with its own nautical heritage and one of the world's finest natural harbours represented an ideal site. With initial funding from the National Heritage Lottery Fund, the NMMC was opened in June 1999.

As my photograph on top and this plan show, the award winning building is entirely ‘fit for purpose’. The exhibits within the building are impressive enough but, looking out of the windows onto Falmouth Harbour, there is an ever changing display of all types of marine craft. You can see what is happening at this minute on the museum’s web-cams which look out to sea, upriver and onto the delightful square in which the museum is based.

The NMMC’s mission statement is: "To promote an understanding of boats and their place in people's lives, to inspire new boat design and to promote an understanding of the maritime heritage of Cornwall."

NMMC Restoration workshop

Restoration is also an important part of its work. The workshop is part of the museum’s main hall and visitors can watch craftsmen at work repairing boats. A very exciting new project is the restoration of a 250 year old Native American canoe which was bought back to Cornwall by a British officer who fought in the American Rebellion / War of Independence and which, incredibly, has remained in his family ever since. It may be one of the oldest birch bark canoes in existence.

Each of the NMMC's collection of 140 boats was powered by the wind or by engines or by human effort. As the main interest of HTBS is with the latter, I have picked four of its ‘man powered’ craft to write about. They are all on show in the main hall, a 360 degree panorama of which can be viewed here.

My HTBS entry of 11th May 2010 mentioned Eton School’s Ten Oar, the Monarch. There have been five such boats at the school, all with the same name, and the one that saw service from 1890 to 1990 is now in retirement at Falmouth. It was built of cedar on an oak frame by Sambo Parkins and Son and is the only known Parkins boat surviving and one of very few examples of 19th century racing boats. It is also an example of the once common side seated boats, where outrigger lengths are adjusted to give constant oar leverage throughout the boat’s length, which is little more than an eight oar at 65ft (20 m). Its beam is 2ft 2ins (0.62 m) and the beam over outriggers is 5ft (1.54 m). The museum’s website says it is a clinker boat (‘lapstrake’ in North America) but I think that it looks like it is carvel-built. Eton has produced many great oarsmen, so it is interesting to think of all the famous rowing men that must have sat in this boat at some time or another.

The simple yet graceful Oselvar (above) is described as 'the boat of a thousand years'. The museum has this to say about it: This type of boat is typical of those still being built in and around the town of Os in south-west Norway...... The lack of coastal villages and ports on this remote coastline meant that boats were vital for transporting people and goods. They had to be light, shallow-draughted, and able to work with three or four crew....... 'Oselvars' were exported in large numbers to the Shetland Isles where they influenced boat construction in the north of Britain.... Boats like this over 1000 years old have been found in graves in Norway and Sweden.

It is interesting to note that many names used to describe boat parts are of Scandinavian origin - such as 'thole, 'thwart' and 'sax'. Length 16 ft 1 in / 4.9 m, beam 4 ft 10 in / 1.46 m, depth 1 ft 4 in / 0.41 m.

The Thames Skiff (above) on show is described as a similar boat to the Oselvar though these evolved in the late 19th and early 20th centuries for leisure use on the Upper Thames. The skiff is often understandably confused with the Thames wherry (which had a long overhanging bows to enable paying passengers to get onto the shore without stepping in the water) and the Thames gig (which had steeper bows and developed following the increased building of landing stages). Length 26 feet / 7.92 m, beam 4ft 7in / 1.21 m.

The Dghaisa (above) is pronounced duy (as in 'buy') ser and is an ancient boat, traditional to the Mediterranean islands of Malta and Gozo. They were originally used for ferrying passengers around harbours or along the coast. They are similar to Venetian gondolas in that they have high bow and stern ends but they are straight up and down and are not curved. Like gondolas they are propelled by one or two people standing and pushing on the oars. When the Royal Navy gave up its base on Malta the demand for the dghaisa as a working boat declined but they have remained popular for racing. The example in the NMMC was built in 1870 and is 21 feet / 6.45 m long and has a beam of 5ft 7 in / 1.7 m.

The National Maritime Museum Cornwall receives no government aid and must pay its own way so please support it if you can by visiting and / or becoming a member.

It is a great day out, even for those in the family who are usually reluctant to become involved with one of its members boating interests!

Thank you, Tim for an as always very interesting report. It made me want to go to the National Maritime Museum in Cornwall!

Hurry Up, Summer!

Today large parts of Connecticut got hammered by snow, also our corner in and around Mystic. It took my wife and me several hours to dig out the cars and clear away the snow outside the house. I can't wait for the warmer days to arrive. 159 days more to go before summer officially starts!

Peter Mallory's Final Chapter

American rowing historian Peter Mallory has now finished the last chapter of his grandiose project called The Evolution of the Rowing Stroke. The other day Row2K posted the chapter, Rowing History; Wisconsin: Berry Crate Crew - Randy Jablonic - Wisco Women, on their web site. Read it by clicking here.

James Cracknell On The Accident That Nearly Killed Him

In July last year, the British Olympic champion James Cracknell had a very bad accident with his bicycle while trying to cross America from Los Angles to New York. In two interviews, he tells the story about his struggle to come back from the accident that nearly killed him.

The Daily Telegraph

Road CC

The Revival Of Cornish Pilot Gig Racing 2

Here Tim Koch continues his story from yesterday about his visit to Falmouth Gig Club in Cornwall.

On a very cold day shortly before Christmas I appeared unannounced at Falmouth Gig Club. Founded in 1985, it is one of the top clubs, and the women have won the World Championships ten times. I found the men’s ‘A’ crew about to go out. Their captain, Fergus Muller, invited me to join them and pointed me towards the ‘pilot’s seat’ in the bow of the gig Energy. The cox was his wife, Amelia, herself a champion rower.


All my previous rowing experience had been with fine outrigged boats with sliding seats so I was very interested to find out the differences. Like all rowing when it is done well, the crew made it look easy. Energy moved fast and true, untroubled by the choppy water of Falmouth Harbour (which, including Carrick Roads, is the third largest natural harbour in the world and a fine training ground).









Fergus shows the catch.








Fergus shows the finish.

The real test came when they tolerated me taking over the bow seat for a few minutes. I was slightly overdressed in a tweed jacket and duffle coat but I slipped my brogues under the foot straps and received some quick instructions. The outside hand is held in an underhand grip and the inside hand is close to it. I was told that there was a way of using the legs at the catch despite the fixed seat but that proved too advanced for me. Against all my fine boat training, I was effectively told to ‘lean away from the work’ at the finish. Sadly, this part came easily to me. The wooden Macon oars had no button to stop them sliding through the pins and I found it difficult to keep the blade square at the catch. The result was several crabs as I (quickly) tired but at least there were no ‘boat stoppers’ or broken tholes. I soon handed back my oar and resumed my role as deadweight.

On the return leg the crew showed me a burst of speed. I had read that a very fast gig can do eight knots and I now believe it. These clinker boats may look heavy compared to a sleek plastic four or eight but they do not feel it when rowed properly. A coxswain’s eye view of a Rock Gig Club crew rowing is here. A view from the pilot’s seat of a Bristol crew rowing is here. It also shows an ‘oar toss’, used to make a quick turn.

In Britain, fine boat rowing still has an image problem because of its Oxbridge / Henley / private school connotations. Not so with gig rowing. To quote The Times, in thirty years Cornish Gig Racing has gone from ‘… a moribund sport…… to a thriving competitive pastime, claimed now to be the fastest-growing community sport in the West Country……’ Those of us who are evangelical about rowing must applaud all those who made and continue to make this happen. As they say in Cornwall when something merits approval, “Proper Job”!

Many warm thanks to Tim for a very interesting report!

The Revival Of Cornish Pilot Gig Racing 1

The always reliable and alert HTBS correspondent Tim Koch in London did not only relax during his Christmas holidays in Cornwall, he had a promise to keep, so here is the first part of his story about Cornish pilot gig racing. Tim writes,

My entry of 30th November on inrigged rowing in Britain today ended with the afterthought that I should have included something on the thriving sport of Cornish Pilot Gig racing and the promise that I would write something after spending Christmas in my native county, Cornwall. Now, thanks to the generous hospitality of Falmouth Gig Club, I am able to bring a first hand report.

The county of Cornwall forms the tip of the south western peninsula of England. It is bordered to the west and north by the Atlantic Ocean, to the south by the English Channel and to the east by the River Tamar. Naturally, it has a strong maritime tradition. In Cornwall the prevailing winds come from the south west so it is easier to row a boat to windward than to sail it and this led to the development of the Cornish Pilot Gig, a coxed, fixed seat, six oared, clinker built rowing boat. It is built of narrow leaf elm and modern boats are all 32 feet (9.8m) long with a beam of 4 feet 10 inches (1.47m). The gunwales are too thin to support rowlocks so tholes or ‘pins’ are used. One of each pair of pins is ‘hard’ (to act as a fulcrum for the oar) and one is ‘soft’ (designed to break in the event of ‘catching a crab’). Gigs are light, buoyant and manageable in heavy seas. As the name suggests, their principal use was to carry ‘pilots’ out to incoming vessels so that they could use their local knowledge to guide ships through dangerous or congested waters. The fastest gig got their man on board first and so won the pilotage fee. Thus, gig racing was born.

When engines replaced sails and oars, interest in racing these boats declined but the sport clung on in Newquay (on the north Cornish coast) and in the Isles of Scilly (28 miles / 45 km west of Cornwall). However, by the 1980s, gig races and the few remaining boats were in danger of dying out. This was changed largely through the efforts of a remarkable local man, Ralph Bird. He triggered a revival by three courses of action. Firstly, Bird organised races. Secondly, he formed the Cornish Pilot Gig Association (CPGA) to see that future gigs were built to an agreed standard and to set the rules of racing. Thirdly, he (eventually) built 29 new gigs with his own hands. The ‘standard’ boat was to be based on the Treffry, built in 1838 and still owned by Newquay Rowing Club. A new boat costs nearly £20,000 ($31,200) and now the two principal boat builders are Hunkins and Nobbs.

Today there are over 50 clubs (owning over 130 boats between them) affiliated to the CPGA. They are mostly from Cornwall but some are from other parts of the UK. There are also clubs in France, the Netherlands, Australia, the Faroe Islands and the USA. Over 7,000 people take part in gig racing at more than 300 regattas around the South West each summer and the ‘World Championships’ are held every May in the Isles of Scilly. The numbers are growing all the time.

To be continued tomorrow...

The Snow Job

The other day my friend Philip Kuepper dropped a new batch of great poems in my mailbox. It was some poems that he had worked on in December. I have picked out one here that reflects the season we are in. More poems on rowing will follow soon.

The Snow Job

The shell laid upside down
On sawhorses next the barn,
Covered in a shroud of snow
From a nor'easter come shrieking
In the night, like a coven
Of banshees destroying
All possibilities of rowing.

But in his mind the bay flowed blue.
Marsh grass stood plaited,
Green and gold, with sunlight,
Among which sparrows flitted,
Twittering busily their philosophy.

In his mind he was at the bay
Where he set off in his shell,
Past the lichened rocks,
The green baize of them soft to his eye.
A warm breeze nudged him out
Across the cobalt blue water,
A cold blue glove of which covered his hand
When he dipped it into the current.

But it was the white streaks of daylight reflected
In the bay in his imagination
That reminded him of the snow he sought to forget,
Shattering his reverie.
Now in the winter quiet of his house,
With the shell snow-shrouded out next the barn,
He remembered summer,
And the wafer sun rising in the chalice sky.

Philip Kuepper
(December 2010)

Who Will Win The Boat Race?

It's a new year and I am happy to report that HTBS's Tim Koch has some interesting Boat Race stuff to bring to the table. Tim writes:

It is interesting to compare the pre Oxford - Cambridge Boat Race coverage recently posted here (HTBS 3 January 2011) with this 1939 offering.

WHO WILL WIN ?

The commentator of seventy years ago may not have known that 'bow' of a boat, rhymes with 'cow' not 'hoe' but I am sure that he would not have used the pointless expression 'kind of' five times in thirty seconds as George Nash, the Cambridge President, did. On hearing him speak I was like 'duh' but I am like sure he would be like 'whatever'. It is one of the perils of sharing a common language with the Americans.

Like best wishes for the New Year!

Tim

I would like to add some foot notes: Cambridge won the race with 3 lengths in 19 min,. 3 sec. The news reel shows Bobbie Bourne as Oxford's stroke, but he never rowed in the race. Both his father and grandfather were famous Blues. Bourne would later row in the winning 1946 Oxford boat. 'Dickie' Burnell, the tall fellow compared with the very short Oxford stroke in the news reel, would become famous as a 1948 Olympic champion in the double scull with Bert Bushnell. Burnell would write several great books on how to row and scull, but also history books on The Boat Race and the Henley Royal Regatta. - G.R.B.

The Boat Race Is Coming Up...

Well, less than 90 days to go for The Boat Race on the River Thames, on 26 March at 5 p.m. Click here to watch a clip from the BBC, showing interviews with George Nash, president of Cambridge, and Ben Myers, president of Oxford.

Any New Year's Resolutions?

Did you make any New Year's resolutions? I did not, especially as I know that the ones I might have come up with would be hard to keep. So I decided against making any promises.

This being said, I do have hopes for the new year. Besides hoping that my dear family will be at good health, I hope to continue to do a couple of work-outs on the erg every week. I hope, as soon as the 'winter conditions' has disappeared from the Mystic River, that I will be able to pick up the old wooden single scull, built by Joe Garofalo of Worchester Oar & Paddle Co., that a very nice person gave me for free some months ago. I am feeling a desperate need to get out on the water...

I have promised both HTBS's Tim Koch of Auriol Kensington RC and Per Ekström, editor of the Swedish rowing magazine Svensk Rodd, to meet them at the Henley Royal Regatta this year. I see this as a gentlemen's agreement that I will not break. I also hope to be able to continue to post entries on HTBS during 2011. It became a lot of them last year, thanks to HTBS's special correspondents Hélène Rémond's and Tim Koch's contributions; but also because other readers of HTBS contacted me with rowing questions or suggestions of topics. Please keep them coming!

I would also like to share some good news: I managed to get a new job for 2011! As of now, I am the editor of the Mystic Seaport Magazine. Please wish me luck!

Resting...

No entry today as the editor of HTBS is unwell...