SCULLING.
_By Guy Nickalls._
In writing an article on sculling, a sculler must of necessity be
egotistical. He can only speak of what he himself feels to be the
correct way of doing things, and cannot judge of how a different man
feels under the same circumstances. I therefore put in a preliminary
plea for forgiveness if in the course of these remarks the letter "I"
should occur with excessive frequency. Sculling is so entirely an art by
itself, that a man might just as well ask a painter how he produces an
impression on a canvas as ask a sculler why he can scull, or how it
comes that so many good oarsmen cannot scull. Ask an ordinary
portrait-painter why he cannot sketch a landscape, and ask an ordinary
oarsman to explain why he cannot scull, and to the uninitiated the
answer of both will have the same sort of vagueness. Sculling differs
so vastly from rowing that no man who has not tried his hand at both can
appreciate how really wide apart they stand; and the fact that sculling
depends to such a great extent on one's innate sense of touch and
balance, makes it extremely hard for a man who has tried his hand with
some success at both sculling and rowing to explain to the novice, or
even to the veteran oarsman, wherein the difference lies. There is as
much difference between sculling and rowing as there is between a single
cyclist racing without pacemakers, steering and balancing himself and
making his own pace, and a man in the middle of a quintette merely
pedalling away like a machine at another man's pace, and not having the
balance or anything else solely under his control. The difference in
"feel" is so great that one might liken it to the difference between
riding a light, springy, and eager thoroughbred which answers quickly to
every touch, and pounding uncomfortably along on a heavy, coarse-bred
horse, responding slowly to an extra stimulus, and deficient in life and
action.
To scull successfully one must possess pluck, stamina, and a cool head,
and must, above all, be a waterman. A man may _row_ well and
successfully, and yet possess none of these qualities. Nothing depresses
a man more when he is sculling than his sense of utter isolation. If a
spurt is required, he alone has to initiate it and carry it through;
there is no cheering prospect of another strong back aiding one, no
strenuous efforts of others to which one can rally, no cox to urge one
to further effort. You feel this even more in practice than in actual
racing, especially when going against the clock. You are your own
stroke, captain, crew, and cox, and success or failure depends entirely
and absolutely upon yourself. No one else (worse luck) is to blame if
things go wrong.
The pace of a sculling-boat is strictly proportionate to the quality of
its occupant. A good man will go fast and win his race; a bad man
cannot. A good man in an Eight cannot make his crew win; and a bad man
in an Eight may mar a crew, but he can also very often win a race
against a crew containing better men than himself.
People have often asked me why a first-class oar should not of necessity
be a good sculler. This, although a hard matter to explain, is partly
accounted for by what I have said above, in that sculling is so greatly
a matter of delicate touch and handling. Even good oars are as often as
not clumsy and wanting in a quick light touch. Very few really big men
have ever been fine scullers. This is partly accounted for by the fact
that so few boats are built large enough to carry big weights, and
consequently they are under-boated when practising. Many big weights,
_e.g._ S. D. Muttlebury and F. E. Churchill, have been good and fast
scullers at Eton, but two or three years afterwards are slow, and get
slower and slower the longer they continue. This, I think, is a good
deal owing to the muscle which a big man generally accumulates,
especially on the shoulders and arms, and he therefore lacks the
essential qualities of elasticity, lissomeness, and quickness with the
hands.
Big, strong men also generally grip with great ferocity the handles of
their sculls, and these being small, the forearm becomes cramped, and
gives out. Many good oarsmen have never tried to scull, and those who
have generally give it up after a first failure, which is more often
than not due to want of attention to detail. What passes for good
watermanship in an Eight is mere clumsiness in a sculling-boat, and, as
a matter of fact, there are far fewer really good watermen than the
casual observer imagines.
I asked three of our best modern heavy-weight oarsmen to tell me the
reason why they could not scull. The Thames R.C. man said the only
reason why he had never won the Diamonds was because he had never gone
in for them. This was straightforward, but unconvincing to any one who
had watched this gentleman gambolling in a sculling-boat. The Cambridge
heavy-weight affirmed solemnly that he could scull, and was at one time
very fast. He subsequently admitted that he could never get a boat big
enough, and, secondly, his arms always gave. The Oxford heavy-weight
replied much to the same purpose, without the preliminary affirmation.
Many men can scull well and slowly, but few can really go fast, and
this, I think, is due to the fact that they do not practise enough with
faster men than themselves, and so do not learn by experience what
action of theirs will best propel a boat at its fastest pace. Nothing is
more deceptive than pace; when a man thinks he is going fastest he is
generally going slowest. He gets the idea that he is going fast because
his boat is jumping under him, and creating a large amount of side-wash;
but an observer from the bank will notice that although the sculls are
applying great power, that power is not being applied properly, and his
boat will be seen to be up by the head and dragging at the stern, and
bouncing up and down instead of travelling.
The first and foremost thing, then, to be attended to for pace is
balance, _i.e._ an even keel, and to obtain this your feet should be
very firm in your clogs. As those supplied by the trade are of a very
rough and rudimentary character, they will nearly always require padding
in different places. You should be able to feel your back-stop just so
much that when leaning back well past the perpendicular you can push
hard against it with a straight leg. You are then quite firm, and can
control your body in the event of your boat rolling. Although when a man
has become a waterman he will find the back-stop unnecessary, it is
safest for the novice to have it, so as to be able to press against it;
otherwise, having nothing to press against at the finish of his stroke,
he may acquire the bad habit of relying entirely on his toes to pull him
forward. In such a position he is unstable, and if his boat rolls he has
no control over his body.
Having got your balance, the next thing to be thought of is the stroke.
Reach forward until the knees touch either armpit; put the sculls in
quite square, and take the water firmly (be most careful not to rush or
jerk the beginning); at the same time drive with the legs, sending the
slide, body and all, back; the loins must be absolutely firm, so that
the seat does not get driven away from underneath the body. If you allow
the loins to be loose and weak you will acquire that caterpillar action
which was to be seen in several aspirants to Diamond Sculls honours last
year, and which ruined whatever poor chance they ever possessed. This
diabolical habit of driving the slide away, although common to many
professionals, cannot be too severely condemned, as it relieves the
sculler from doing any work at all except with the arms, which, if thus
used, without swing and leg-work to help them, cannot, unless a man is
enormously muscular in them, hold out for any great length of time. The
firm drive will start the swing of the body, which may be continued a
fraction of time after the slide has finished. You will find that when
you have driven your slide back your body will have swung well past the
perpendicular (and in sculling you may swing further back than you are
allowed to in rowing). When in that position a sculler is allowed to do
that which an oarsman must not, viz. he may help to start his recovery
by moving his body slightly up to meet his sculls as they finish the
stroke. Thus by keeping his weight on the blades in the water as long as
possible, instead of in his boat, he strengthens the finish and prevents
his boat burying itself by the bows. The stroke from the beginning
should go on increasing in strength to the finish, which should be firm
and strong, but, like the beginning, not jerked or snapped. Strength
applied to the finish keeps a boat travelling in between the strokes.
The finish is by far the hardest part of the stroke, and is most
difficult to get clean and smart. The position is naturally a far weaker
one than that of the oarsman, as the hands are eight inches or so
further back, and at the same time six inches or so clear of the ribs.
In this position nine out of ten scullers fail to get a really quick
recovery with the sculls clean out and clear of the water, the hands
away like lightning and clear of the knees, and the body at the same
time swinging forward. As soon as the hands have cleared the knees they
should begin to turn the blade off the feather, so that by the time you
are full forward the blades are square and ready to take the water.
Professionals recommend staying on the feather until just before the
water is taken, but this is apt to make the novice grip his handles
tightly, and press on them almost unconsciously when he should be very
light. He will thus make his blade fly up and miss the beginning. In
order to ensure both hands working perfectly level and taking and
leaving the water exactly together, a man should watch his stern, and by
the turn given either way he can easily detect which hand is not doing
its right amount of work. Which hand you scull over or which under makes
little or no difference. Personally, I scull with the right hand under.
In holding a scull the thumb should "cap" the handle; this prevents you
from pulling your button away from the thowl even the slightest bit, and
makes your grip firmer and steadier. If in steering you must look right
round, do so shortly before you are full forward, as soon as the hands
have cleared the knees, but generally steer by the stern, if you can,
without looking round, and almost unconsciously by what you notice out
of the corner of either eye as you pass.
Modern professionals, with very few exceptions, scull in disgracefully
bad form. W. Haines, Wag Harding, and W. East, at his best, are perhaps
the only exceptions I know to this rule. English professionals, owing to
the manual labour with which most of them start life, become abnormally
strong in the arms, and trust almost entirely to those muscles. Their
want of swing, their rounded backs, and "hoicked" finish they carry with
them into a rowing-boat. Nothing shows up their bad form in rowing so
much as sandwiching a few pros. in a goodish amateur crew--"by their
style ye shall know them." They have acquired a style which does not
answer, and which they cannot get rid of, and they consider an Eight can
be propelled in the same manner as a sculling-boat. Nothing is more
erroneous. They cannot assimilate their style to the correct one. Two
pros. sometimes make a fair pair, because they may happen to "hoick"
along in the same style. Professional Fours are a little worse than
Pairs, and their Eights disgraceful. I am of opinion (and I fancy most
men who know anything about rowing will agree with me) that England's
eight best amateurs in a rowing-boat would simply lose England's eight
best pros. over any course from a mile upwards. This inability to
assimilate one's style to that of another man, or body of men, may be
the reason why some excellent amateur scullers proved inferior oars, or
it may be that they can go at their own pace and not at another man's. I
myself have often felt on getting out of a sculling-boat into an Eight
great difficulty and much weariness at being compelled to go on at
another man's pace, and only to easy at another's order. If you are
practising for sculling as well as rowing there is nothing like being
_captain_ of an Eight or stroke of a Pair or Four.
The novice, if he has toiled so far as this, is no doubt by now saying
to himself that I am only repeating what he knows already, and that what
he especially requires are hints as to rigging his boat, size and shape
of sculls, and various measurements, the pace of stroke he ought to go,
etc., Of course, the smaller the blade the quicker the stroke, and _vice
vers[^a]_. It should be remembered that even 1/16 of an inch extra in the
breadth of a blade makes a lot of difference. Blades, I think, should
vary according to the liveliness of water rowed on, and according to the
strength of the individual. For myself, I am rather in favour of smaller
blades than are generally used. My experience leads me to believe that
racing sculls should be from 9 ft. 8-1/2 ins. to 9 ft. 9-1/2 ins. in
length all over; in-board measurement from 2 ft. 8-1/4 ins. to 2 ft. 9
ins., but, of course, this entirely depends on how much you like your
sculls to overlap. When they are at right angles to the boat, my sculls
overlap so much that there is a hand's-breadth of space in between my
crossed hands. The length of blade should be about 2 ft.; breadth of
blade, from 5-3/4 ins. to 6-1/4 ins. Even on the tideway sculls should
be as light as a good scull-maker can turn them out, so long as they
retain their stiffness. Do not, however, sacrifice stiffness to
lightness. It is rather interesting to compare these measurements with
those of a pair of sculls hanging over my head as I write; these were
used in a championship race eighty years ago, and have a heavy square
loom to counteract their length and consequent weight out-board. The
measurements are--8 ft. 8 ins. in length over all, 1 ft. 9 ins.
in-board; length of blade, 2 ft. 5 ins.; breadth of blade, 3-1/8 ins. I
give below roughly what should be the measurements of a boat according
to the weight of the sculler. For a man of--
9 stone. 12 stone. 13 stone.
Length 30 ft. 31 ft. 31 ft. 3 ins.
Width 9 ins. 10-1/2 ins. 11-1/2 ins.
Depth 5-1/4 ins. 5-1/2 ins. 5-3/4 ins.
" forward 3-1/4 ins. 3-1/2 ins. 3-5/8 ins.
" aft 2-1/2 ins. 2-1/2 ins. 2-5/8 ins.
Weight 24 lbs. 28 lbs. 34 lbs.
As to slide, I hold that a man should slide to a point level with his
rowing-pin--never past it, lest the boat should be pinched instead of
being driven at the beginning of the stroke. The clogs should be fixed
at an angle of 55 deg. to the keel (_i.e._ an angle measured along the back
of the clogs). If the angle is much smaller, the feet and legs lose
power when the sculler is full back, and the drive at the finish is
weakened. If the angle is greater, the difficulty of bending the
ankle-joints sufficiently as the slide moves forward becomes very
serious. The distance of fifteen inches from the heel of the clogs to
the edge of slide when full forward may be slightly reduced, but only
slightly. For instance, if reduced, as is sometimes done, to ten inches,
the body comes too close to the heels in the forward position to enable
the sculler to get a strong, direct, and immediate drive, and the boat
is pinched.
A very old sculling-boat of mine--and perhaps the best that Clasper ever
built--was built for Mr. F. I. Pitman in 1886. She owed her pace to the
fact that she was very long aft, and consequently never got up by the
head; her cut-water was always in the water, even when her occupant was
full forward; and the most marvellous thing was that, low as she was,
she did not bury her nose, considering that she had to endure a weight
of 170 lbs. or so, shifting its position fore and aft to the extent of
sixteen inches. She is a marvel of the boat-builder's art, and was built
of exceptionally close-framed cedar, which takes a long time to get
water-soaked, and indeed should never do so if properly looked after.
Her dimensions were: Length, 31 ft. 2 ins.; length from edge of sliding
seat when forward to stern-post, 14 ft. 6-1/2 ins.; width, 11-1/4 ins.;
depth forward, 3-1/4 ins.; depth aft, 2-5/8 ins.; depth amidships, 5-1/2
ins.; from heels to back edge of slide when back, 3 ft. 5-1/4 ins.;
leverage, _i.e._ measurement from thowl to thowl across, 4 ft. 9 ins.;
from heels to edge of seat when forward, 15-1/4 inches. She won the
Diamond Sculls in 1886, 1888, 1889, 1890; the amateur championship in
1886, 1887, 1888, 1889, 1890; besides the Metropolitan Sculls and
several minor races.
It is a great mistake to try and get a boat too light. The eagerness a
man will display in cutting down everything to lessen the weight of his
craft, until he is sitting on the water on a weak bit of nothing, is
really astounding. Three or four extra pounds often make all the
difference, whether a boat is stiff and keeps on travelling, or whether
she jumps, cocks her head, and waggles about generally.
As to the pace of stroke, from twenty-two to twenty-six strokes a minute
is a fair practice paddle, twenty-four to twenty-eight for sculling
hard, and in racing, even for a minute, never attempt anything over
thirty-eight. I once sculled seventy-eight strokes in two minutes, and
felt more dead than alive at the end of it. It is harder work to scull
thirty-eight strokes in a minute than it is to row forty-four in the
same time. If you do start at thirty-eight, drop down as soon as
possible to thirty-four, thirty-two, or even thirty, according to
circumstances of wind and weather, etc. My best advice to the novice is
to go just fast enough to clean out his opponent before the same thing
happens to himself, or, even better still, to get his opponent beaten,
and leave himself fresh. But always remember if you are at all evenly
matched, that however bad you feel yourself, your opponent is probably
in just as bad a plight. Talking of pace reminds me of how soon even the
best scullers tire. In sculling a course against time at Henley, a good
man may get to Fawley, the halfway point, in about the same time as a
Pair, and yet will be half a minute slower from that point to the
finish; and for the last quarter-mile the veriest tiro can out-scull a
champion, provided the latter has gone at his best pace throughout. In
scull-racing the advantage of the lead is greater than in rowing, as a
sculler can help his own steering by watching the direction of the
other's craft. Yet you should never sacrifice your wind to obtain the
advantage, for recollect that in sculling you can never take a blow or
an easy for even a stroke. If you are behind, never turn round to look
at your opponent, as by doing so you lose balance and pace, and many a
good man has lost a race by so doing. Keep just so close up to your man
as to prevent him giving you the disadvantage of his back wash.
Training for sculling requires more time and practice than training for
rowing. If it takes an Eight 6 weeks to get together and fit to race, it
takes a Four 9 weeks, a Pair 12 weeks, and a Sculler 15 weeks. If a man
is training for both rowing and sculling at the same time, and racing in
both on the same day, it takes lengths and lengths off his pace, for
rowing upsets all that precision so necessary in sculling. If a man
sculls and rows at Henley, and does both on the same day, and practises
for the same daily for a month beforehand, I should think it would make
him from six to eight lengths slower on the Henley course. Otherwise,
train as you would for rowing, the only difference being that a little
more time should be spent in the actual sculling than is spent in the
actual rowing.
Having attended Henley Regatta since 1883, and having raced there for
twelve years in succession, I have met with various scullers. Mr. J. C.
Gardner, taking him all round, was the finest I have ever seen of
amateurs. He was quite the best stripped man I have ever seen, his
muscles standing out like bars of steel all over his body; he was a very
neat, finished sculler, the only fault I could find with him being a
tendency to a weak finish. W. S. Unwin, a light weight, was extremely
neat, but his style was rather spoilt by a roundish back. F. I. Pitman,
his great rival, was perhaps a better stayer, and had a more elegant
style. Vivian Nickalls, for a long man, was a fine sculler, handicapped
by an awkward finish and handicapped also by the fact that he never
entirely gave his time up to sculling only--his chief characteristic
being a fine, healthy, long body swing. M. Bidault, a Frenchman, who
rowed in the Metropolitan Regatta some years ago, was 7 ft. 4-1/2 ins.
high; he weighed 17 stone; his boat weighed 50 lbs., was 35 feet long,
had a 5 ft. leverage; his sculls were 11 ft. 10 ins. long. Compare with
him Wag Harding, with a boat 19-1/2 lbs. in weight, weighing 9 stone
himself, and you will see in what different forms and shapes men can
scull. And M. Bidault was a fast man for a quarter of a mile. The
fastest sculler for half a mile I have ever seen was Herr Doering, who
sculled for the Diamonds in 1887. The slowest man I have ever seen
was---- Well, I won't mention names, as he might go in for the Diamond
Sculls again. Rupert Guinness, although not what I should call a born
sculler, obtained his great proficiency in sculling by dint of a very
long and careful preparation, by months and months of continual
practice, and by not hampering his sculling by entering and practising
for rowing events at the same time--in fact, by making a speciality of
sculling.