Feathering and the finish

We’ve talked about grip, and we’ve done drills to improve the grip.  Now, let’s talk in more detail about what’s traditionally called “The Finish.” 

The finish is the part of the stroke where you take your oars out of the water.  For this reason and because the stroke really is a continuous cycle, some coaches call it “the release.”  It’s also called “the back end,” to remind you of your body position.  I use all of these terms when coaching, but I use “the release” to mean the interval of time when the blades come out of the water and “the finish” to mean generally the back-end turnaround. 

The release is a very important time during the stroke.  If not accomplished quickly and carefully, you can really slow yourself down and make boat feel tippier than it already is.  Extracting the blades from the water is accomplished both by relaxing and by active motion.  It is the source of many “errors” – motions, which, though inefficient in terms of boat speed, do attempt to solve certain difficulties inherent in taking the blades out of the water.  The release proper is also intimately connected with the action of feathering the blades, though the two are best thought of as  separate actions with slightly different timecourses. 

First, let’s review the actions in the square-blades release.  We know that the blades must stay fully buried until the handles run out of room; that is, until your thumb knuckles reach your body. We also know that the wrists should be perfectly flat while the blades are coming out of the water, and that extraction is begun by weighting the hands on the handles more heavily.  When the blades are out of the water, the hands may begin moving away from the body to begin the recovery. 

Now, let’s examine what happens when you feather the oars.  The feathering process begins when “most” of the blade is out of the water.  It ends when the oar has rotated 90º and is resting on one of the flat sides of its collar.  The action of feathering the blades does make it easier to get them out of the water, but it is not intended solely to aid in the release of the blade from the water.  Feathering also makes it easier to carry the oar above the water on the recovery.

Optimally, feathering requires very little effort.  Once the oar has been tipped onto the corner of its collar, it will fall over on its own.  Some people accomplish this tipping by rolling the end of the handle with their thumbs; these digitally gifted individuals are blessed with long fingers and have more leverage with which to accomplish this maneuver than I do.  I, on the other hand, need to get the oar to its tipping point by using my wrists – but then I stop using my wrists by flexing my hands and return them to their flat position just before the hands-away. 

Notice that I haven’t mentioned the fingers.  That’s because they really aren’t all that important at the finish.  In fact, it is possible to accomplish the finish (and most of the recovery) with the fingers off the handles entirely.  Taking the blades out of the water requires only deflection of the handles downward, and fingers don’t make this happen.  And feathering requires only tipping the oar.  Though fingers are useful in this action, they aren’t where the main action is here either.  The upshot of all of this is that if you are feathering by gripping the handles and turning them as if you were revving a motorcycle, you’re working too hard.  You’re also predisposing yourself to repetitive motion injuries on the nerves in your wrists. 

Taking the blades out of the water and feathering them happen in very close proximity to each other, but not quite at the same time.  In fact, feathering happens after the blades begin coming out of the water.  The release has to begin with blades squared up, or you will be finishing off your stroke with angled blades – and they are much less efficient propulsion devices than squared blades. Finally, if simply feathering the oar is your sole way of getting it out of the water, this means you had to finish your stroke with a blade that was at least halfway out of the water to begin with. 

To say the same thing a different way:

Part of what makes it easier to extract a feathered blade is that you don’t have to move as quickly.  (The other part is your tummy – if it is like mine, it sticks out and the handles can get stuck in it at the finish).  When you extract a fully square blade, you have to do it fast enough to get the whole blade out of the water before your boat moves too far past where the blade was anchored.  If you don’t, your oar will get stuck in the water and you will feel like you’ve just stopped the boat.  (You have).  Angling the blade before extracting it doesn’t create that juddering feeling of checking the boat down, but still allows the blade to drag through the water.  You’re still checking the boat down, just not as dramatically. 

And if, when you feather those angled oars, your blades end up completely out of the water, that means that you must have been finishing off your stroke with a blade that was only half buried to begin with.  Think about it:  If you feather a completely buried oar, you get a completely buried, feathered oar.  If you feather an oar that ends up completely out of the water, a little more than half of the blade must have been above the surface.  And this means that you were rowing with only a half-blade. 

Finishing off your stroke with angled blades, then, results in a few difficulties.  First, in order to get your blades into a position where they’ll be out of the water just by being feathered, you had to wash out.  Also, as you were leisurely finishing off your stroke with an angled blade, it was dragging through the water and eating up your hard-won boat speed. 

Solving these problems leads us to a difficult situation.  In order to get the most propulsion out of the blades, they must be fully perpendicular to the water while they are in the water.  But they also have to come out of the water very, very quickly or they will slow the boat down.  This means that the motion downward of the handles that pops the blades out of the water has to be an incredibly rapid one. 

In fact, it is easier to extract a half-feathered blade than it is to extract a square blade.  In response to an earlier post, reader Caustic asks:  “Why, exactly, is the square blade good at allowing a strong finish? By having to clear a full blade from the water, the rower is forced to lower their handles a corresponding amount - typically 3-4 inches for the 8-ish inches of blade that needs to exit the water. This means that there must be that clearance in front of their body to allow this range of motion. However, if they are pulling all the way to their body (hence the brushing of the thumbs), this clearance does not exist.  However, if they feather & push away at the same time, this problem is eliminated.” 

I think the answer is actually contained in the last sentence:  If you feather and push away (not down) at the same time, you don’t have to worry about taking the whole blade out of the water at once. The secret is in the timing and in the realization that, in fact, the entire blade need not come out of the water before the feathering motion starts.  To describe the whole process in slow motion:

Your blades are square as you finish off your stroke with arms only. 
When the thumbs reach the shirt you pop the handles down and the blades out.
When about ½ of each blade is extracted, you tip the handles to start feathering.
At about the same time, you flex your hands so that your wrists go flat. 
This further pushes the handles down just a bit without lowering the hands any more. 
And maybe just a fraction of a second later, you push the handles away. 

To do all this efficiently, it helps immensely to achieve the right grip – with your elbows out to the sides, your wrists should be completely flat as you deflect the handles down.  This gives you much more room to make that downward motion than if your wrists were cocked.  Second, it helps to have your oarlocks rigged high enough so that you have enough room to completely extract the blades at square-blades without your handles touching your lap (or tummy).

In sum, though the feathering motion helps you extract the blades from the water, it does not help to finish off the drive.  If you are rowing correctly, you will almost run out of room to row just before you pop the handles down.  At this point, you can angle the blades out of the water without worrying that you will be rowing with angled blades.  The hand-flex completes the “push-down” motion of the handles without changing the height of the hands proper, and it also allows the blade to finish falling over into the feathered position. 

The next post will be a direct response to some of the comments so far.  In the post after that, I’ll describe some drills that will help you accomplish a clean, quick release.  In the meantime, I look forward to reading more of your challenging questions.

Comments

[Bob]

One thing I haven't heard mentioned, although maybe it was as I have not re-read this in its intirety, is the fact that there is a considerable trough behind the blade when it is fully powered up, i.e. the power side of the blade is fully covered whereas the back of the blade is maybe only two-thirds covered with water at the properly powered finish. Isn't into this trough that the blade is feathered almost instantly at the finish? It seems to me (and Caustic and Frank, I'm sure) that the blade can be feathered into this trough without slowing the boat down at all. You can then lift the blade higher to clear rough water as move into the recovery.