r/Rowing

This past weekend, I came within a foot or two of my oar colliding with a suitcase floating down the river (typical black rolling bag). Would have flipped me for sure. I whacked one of those thin plastic fruit containers with my oar and while nothing happened, it was SO loud that for a second I thought something must have cracked. Rowed over a log that bumped along the bottom of my boat, but didn’t damage anything, thankfully.

A friend hit a big branch and flipped…the branch had a blanket caught up in it, and wrapped in the blanket was a dead dog.

My coach murdered two geese. He says it was an accident…

Someone else in my club collided with a tugboat.

Seems like everyone has a great story. What near-misses or full-on collisions have you had?

I might be making a mountain out of a molehill - haven't been following rowing for very long - but I see SIGNIFICANTLY more media coverage/emphasis put on coastal/beach sprint rowing than "actual" flat-water racing and I'm curious how much of the larger community actually follows or cares about it or if this is USRowing funding the bourgeoisie's cash-cow for yet another hard to enter sport to keep rowing gatekept.

From my viewpoint it's more of a spectacle than anything that gives people the wrong idea of what rowing is that's more dependent on technique than fitness which has me like why even bother? Sure it's impressive, but I have a million times more respect for a middling unset college 8 of novices flying down the course than some dude running on a beach to get into a bathtub single.

Forgive me for being a little stupid, a little biased and passionate, but watched a similar thing happen with water polo and their clusterf*ck of a national (southern california) league.

Hey fam. I have a son who started rowing last year at 15 years old. He currently sits at 6’7”, 210 lbs. up until the middle of this season, his 2K progression has been pretty linear.

He came out of the swim season and pulled a 6:35 at the first indoor back in March. A few weeks later, he got it down to 6:32.7. But, since then, he’s managed two 6:38s. One of them was at the end of the season, and a lot of his buddy’s PR’d, so that didn’t sit well with him. He’s happy his team has improved, but he’s disappointed in himself, and doesn’t understand why he isn’t improving. He eats plenty, strength trains, steady states before practices, but his expectations haven been met.

I explained to him that progression is not linear and there will be dips in performance along his journey and that I’m proud of him regardless of what his current numbers are.

I’m coming to the community to get perspective from those who have plateaued or experienced this and what steps did you take to break through the physical and/or mental blockade.

Cheers!

I’m an ex-rower, used to row in Bristol about 10 years ago and I’ve literally worn my old rowing club tshirts ever since. They’re now absolutely falling apart, and my wife is eating my brand to throw them away.

I was hoping to buy some new rowing related kit (t-shirts, sweatshirts, hoodies etc.), but my old club doesn’t really seem to have anything available for alumni. I started looking around for brands that make rowing themed casual wear, but I honestly can’t seem to find much.

Do you guys know of any existing brands that do this sort of thing? Ideally something simple with classic Rowing oars

If I can’t find anything, I’m half tempted to find a vendor and set up a tiny brand myself through Etsy or my own website mostly because I can’t be the only ex-rower still emotionally attached to decade old club kit.

So I guess my questions are:
a) Are there any existing brands you’d recommend?
b) Would anyone else actually be interested in buying this kind of stuff too?

My Opinion:

1. 1v8+
2. Single
3. 1v Quad
4. 2v8+
5. Pair
6. u17 8+
7. 4+
8. 4-
9. u16 8+
10. 2v Quad
11. u17 1x
12. u17 4+
13. u17 Quad
14. Double
15. u17 Double
16. 16 Coxed Quad

The way I thought of this was how impressed a college coach would be if you told them you won an event. (Which is why sculling boats are ranked lower)

Keep in mind no one has rowed all of these events at nationals, so it's hard for anyone including myself to say for sure the prestige. Sorry in advance because I know I'm going to offend some people. Open to criticism, but keep it civil

A few days ago, some postulated the return of Amanda Kraus to the helm of our national governing body for the sport of rowing, and even suggested that the board was begging for this. Sadly, that could not be further from the truth. In fact, it is quite the opposite.

It is true that the Winklevoss twins are withdrawing their support of USRowing, but they were willing to stay the course if Kraus were to return and the leadership of the board were to step down. But this board of volunteers, fortunate enough to have been stewards over five years of growth and financial stability under the leadership of Kraus, now thinks it knows better than she did and that she was simply a good fundraiser. They now believe the organization would be better served with a more "commercially aligned" director.

What does that mean? Well, of course, now that USRowing is in a better place, large brands will supposedly flock to the organization wanting to sponsor this tiny, obscure sport that will somehow overachieve in commercial partnerships unlike any of its peers in the Olympic movement. And this will apparently lead to branded regatta series generating millions of dollars in revenue.

It is pure fantasy, of course, with no real understanding of why the board of volunteers believes this should happen. The durable work of activating individuals to support USRowing, of building a foundation that in only three years under Kraus brought more money into the organization than at any other time in its history, is now considered too narrow. Not enough.

Well, good luck with the new path they are setting off toward. This board of volunteers, in all of its wisdom, is already almost $3 million in the hole with Kraus having been gone for less than four weeks. The years of work spent rebuilding trust in an organization with decades of mistrust are now trending back in the wrong direction. Members should be prepared for rising dues and regatta costs to cover their folly.

Looks like every boat from Hobart got disqualified at Dad Vails. Does anyone know why?

Since lightweight has been getting phased out, is the general consensus that there will be another version of a category being implemented to even the playing field (maybe height categories?) Or will it be only an open category?

Hello,

I'm fairly new to rowing, about a month in. I used to flirt a little with an erg in school but never seriously, but after uni I became a couch potato and lost a lot of endurance.

So i picked up the erg once more and I noticed that I'm significantly better on long distances than short ones:

PBs, all measured this week, C2, fan 4:

8:27.6 2k @20spm

6878m 30:00 @18

44:14.3 10k @17

It feels like i hit some sort of ceiling with my stroke rate / power output. If not for a push at the end of the 10k I could probably keep going at that pace for longer, but going just slightly higher will make me gassed in just a few minutes if not dozens of seconds.

I probably *can* pull harder at the 20ish spm to get a better split and it might be my cardio being ass that i can't keep it up for long, but i can't hold a casual split at 23-25 spm as it feels like i can't breathe without actually tiring myself that badly.

Any tips?

bio: 26M, 190cm (6ft2ish), 87kilos (190lbs), only casual sports besides rowing, no weight training as i hate it deeply, mildly anemic due to genetics but mostly just out of shape

We’ve seen a massive increase in boat speed since the advancement of the carbon rigger. How much of this is sports science, and training and how much of this is equipment?