Been a while since I thought about steering, but I’ve been called upon to help some folks with it recently, so I thought I’d share some of what I’ve been thinking.
Now, chances are I’ve never rowed on your home course, so I can’t tell you about useful landmarks. But I can give a sort of précis of what the major ways to steer are, as well as of some important aspects of each. You’ll probably have need for all of them at some point.
I guess the methods of steering have three main functions: to keep your boat going straight when you need it to go straight, to help you adjust course when you need to do that, and to keep you from running into things at all times.
When scullers are just starting out, they often find that they tend toward one side or the other. But you’ve got a good way to monitor your course right in front of you: Your wake. Watching your wake is probably the easiest way to make sure you’re going more or less straight – as long as the weather’s good enough to see it well, and no one taller than you is sitting in front of you. It’s better to make little corrections than big ones, so: Steer early, steer often. That way, you’ll get used to how not to pull to one side, too (assuming it’s not a problem with the boat). Related to this, of course, is using a stern point to keep your boat going straight. For this, you pick some landmark on the horizon off your stern and you keep your stern pointed right at it. It’ll wiggle around, of course, but as long as you don’t let the distance between the landmark and your stern get too big before you correct it, you’ll be okay.
Steering by stern point is probably most common on long straight courses where you can be reasonably assured that nothing will be in front of you – in a buoyed 2K course, for example. In “straight” team boats, which is to say fours without coxswain, quads, and doubles, the control of who’s steering will often switch from warmup to race. That is, the stroke has the best view of any stern point, but the worst view of what is ahead of the boat. The reverse is true for the bow seat. So on the way down to the start of a 2K, bow seat generally steers (as he or she would normally). But when the boat enters the buoyed lanes, bow seat will often release control to the stroke, who has a better view of the buoy lines. Even though bow seat has better leverage for steering the boat, when stroke seat reaches out farther on one side or the other to effect the change in course, bow or three can see this and join in as needed. If the four or quad is steered by use of a toe rudder, then the foot stretcher with the “toe” on it is put at the seat of the person who will be steering the race. When the boat is not in the buoyed course, bow seat can still be responsible for steering by making the steering calls – whereupon all rowers join in a little or just the stroke can use the toe. When bow seat isn’t making a steering call, stroke will generally try to keep the toe straight.
For those who haven’t “toed” a boat: The boat’s rudder is connected by wires to a metal arrangement on the toe of the right shoe of one of the foot stretchers, and that shoe is attached to the foot boards at only one point, allowing it to rotate. The wires are set up so that you steer by pointing your toe in the direction you want to go. This is not the same as how they are set up for a coxswain, because rowers and coxswains face in opposite directions. The wires attached to the metal arrangement on the toe are crossed on their way to the rudder, or you’d have to point your heel in the direction you wanted to go. Toes also have an indicator that is supposed to tell you when the rudder is straight, but they often come out of alignment, so you can’t always trust them. Best way to deal with this is to put the boat in slings, have someone hold the rudder straight, and then look to see where the little metal tabs on the toe are so you know what counts as “straight” .
If the setup sounds uncomfortable to you, you’re very perceptive. Often, you get to row with your foot angled to the right or the left, as if you were pigeon-toed or splay-footed. It’s even more awesome when you’re trying to toe a boat whose shoes are twice as large as your feet, because then angling your foot just moves your foot around in the shoe without changing the rudder’s position. That means you get to really crank your foot around in a contorted position and row like that while trying to follow the person in front of you, make steering calls, and look around. For this reason, some folks make heel inserts. You just cut a couple of half-moon-shaped pieces of foam and cover them with duct tape. Then you stuff them into the heels of the shoes. That allows your toes to be in the toe of the shoe and more effectively move the rudder. (It also allows both feet to be at the same level)
On most regular rowing venues, I venture (with shockingly little evidence to back me up), rowers steer by gauging their distance from shore or by using a hat-mounted mirror to aim at a point ahead of them. I don’t use a mirror, so I have little to say about them except that YOU STILL NEED TO LOOK AROUND on shared waterways, even if you use one. That’s because you can only get a good panoramic view of what’s ahead of you and to your sides by scanning as you turn your head. Looking over your shoulder helps you memorize the general lay of the land, while a more careful look or a glance into the mirror allows you to identify details in that landscape.
To steer off the shore (i.e., to use the shore as a reference for your course), you need to turn your head to the side that you’re monitoring (the traffic pattern generally imitates that of a road , so in the U.S. this is your starboard side). You look over your shoulder, peek at what’s there or what the shore is doing, and adjust accordingly. The best time to do this is during the drive, because your blades are in the water and you’re the most stable, but of course you should look whenever you have to. If you’re new to steering, it will seem completely counterintuitive to look on the drive. Why not do it when you have nothing to do, on the recovery? Well: you don’t have nothing to do on the recovery; you have the recovery to do. Also, your blades are out of the water, so your balance will be much easier to disrupt. The way you look over your shoulder is this: During the first part of the drive, you simply turn your head to the side, touching your chin to your shoulder, and peek out of the corner of your eye at what the shore ahead is doing.
How far ahead? Short answer: Far enough ahead so that you have time to avoid hitting things. This will obviously be farther for a heavyweight men's quad than for a lightweight woman’s single.
Here’s a more detailed version of the same answer.
It’s useful to think of rowing shells as not turning in curves, but in a series of straight lines. After all, these boats are really built to go straight, and only straight. So, even if you row on a curvy river like the Charles, it’s helpful to imagine your journey not as sinuous but as a series of dots that you’re going to connect. Once you conceive of your path this way, you can better understand how to use the shore as a guide. In this idealized, simplified world, you imagine the shore as being much smoother than it really is. Many coves you’ll ignore; outcroppings you have to pay attention to, so that you can skim by them.
So let’s walk through a couple of scenarios to see how all this might work. Imagine you start from a dead stop. Of course, while you were stopped you pulled over to the side so that no other rowers had to go around you, because it’s annoying to steer and you don’t want to make others have to do so unnecessarily. You also made sure that you were pointed more or less parallel to the direction of travel while you were stopped, so you presented a smaller target and so you could pick up and go on a moment’s notice if needed. But now you’re ready to go. You looked around to see which direction you needed to head in, and you sculled your bow around a little to get yourself pointed correctly. You may have looked first over one shoulder, then the other, and then averaged; or maybe you only needed a look over one shoulder.
Now you’re up and going. The first thing you have to do is make sure you’re still pointed the way you thought you were, and that nothing materialized in front of you while you weren’t looking. Peek over shore-side shoulder and verify that you’re still aiming to miss the next outcropping.
Good. Now you have a few strokes to think about technique. But after no more than five strokes you’ll need to peek again. This time, forget about the previous outcropping and aim for the next dot in your connect-the-dots picture. If the shore is relatively straight, pick a region on it several boat-lengths ahead and aim your boat so that it will be the same distance off that point as you are off the shore next to you now (assuming it’s a safe distance to begin with). If the shore’s not straight, you’ll have to avoid the next outcropping – another reason to be looking frequently. As you get up to speed you’ll get a sense of how far ahead to look. Make the minimum adjustment you need to, so you won’t oversteer and have to correct your correction.
I like to stick pretty close to shore on the Charles, about a boat-length away unless the general traffic pattern demands otherwise. It means frequent checking, but that’s useful in any case. The shore is my friend. It stays where it is and generally damages my boat less than other boats will. (Hitting other boats is worse than hitting the shore – ask my friend John Yasaitis, who ran into an eight one time.) I also want to stay in the “right lane”, as it were (I mean the slow lane), unless have to pass someone. Rare these days, but still a theoretical possibility. By sticking in the slow lane, I leave more room for faster folks to pass me without having to cross the invisible yellow line separating upstream from downstream traffic.
As I row, I peek around every 5 strokes or so, always identifying the next object (shore or boat; rarely a swimmer, but it’s happened) that I need to skim by. There’s always more looking and more steering when there’s stuff in front of me, of course. Not pleasant but a LOT better than hitting stuff. My goal is to look at the shore at the point where I think I’ll be in five strokes’ time, adjusting my course so as to maintain my current distance off the shore.
When I get to a bridge, I generally give myself two looks, especially if the bridge involves a turn as well (true of about half the bridges on the Charles). That way I can see how far I am from not only the shore or abutment on my shore side, but also from the abutment on the other side, and then split the distance. I’ve identified a lot of stern points that I use to make sure I’m tracking on the course I need through the bridge so I can end up in a good position on the other side. I have landmarks that help me decide when to start or end turns, as well. You’ll develop these, too, as you practice on your home course.
When I have to share an arch with or pass someone, I stop caring about the far-away points and just pay attention to the other boat’s oars so I can avoid them. It may sound obvious to say this, but I have coached scullers who do not stop paying attention to far-away marks – and then I've had to disentangle them from the boat they clashed oars with. When you’re in a pack of other boats, the best thing you can do is to ROW STRAIGHT so that everyone can anticipate where you’re going and not run into you. If you need to turn and the other boats aren’t showing signs of adjusting, communicate with them. In Boston a simple “Double! To port!” or the like will do. (or “Coxswain!” or “Pair!” or “Jim!”) The worst thing you can do is steer dramatically and unpredictably, then stop rowing. That’s certain to cause a giant fustercluck.
[Fustercluck, n. Polite word for a clusterfuck, which is a mass of entangled annoyed boats and rowers all swearing at one another out of sheer pique, exacerbated by hypoxia and the sound of cash registers ringing up the cost of fixing whatever damage has just been done to oars, riggers, and hulls. For it to be a true clusterfuck, each boat must be simultaneously steering in a different direction while shouting contradictory directions to each other boat.]
What’s the takeaway today?
- Look over your shoulder a lot. Even if you are in the correct traffic pattern, if someone strays over the center line into your path and you haven’t looked around and seen them, you’re just as much at fault as they are if you collide. After all, if you’re driving a car and looking down while someone enters your lane and you crash into them, you’re not faultless. You’re supposed to be looking where you’re going. (Besides, even if it’s not your fault, you’re still going to suffer if you hit someone. It’s annoying, but less painful and MUCH less expensive to take the responsibility for checking).
- Think ahead: who cares about the shore next to you? You’ve already avoided it, and your boat isn’t moving in that direction. Aim to avoid the next obstacle, and once you’ve set a course to do that you can focus on the obstacle after that, and so on. Find some way to monitor your course in between looks so you have a predictable course that needs little adjustment.
- And communicate clearly but politely with other boats. If something happens, politeness often gets you a “discount” in the responsibility you get charged with, if you know what I mean. If you’re an ass about the whole thing, you make the other person want to charge you more. So think of politeness as an investment, if you can’t bring yourself to just be nice out of habit.
Oh yeah – I forgot the most important one: enjoy your rowing!