Quads

We took a quad out on Thursday evening for our first outing after last weekend's regatta.

I have a fear of quads. Years of rowing in eights has convinced me that the correct way to arrange eight blades is staggered over a distance of some ten or so metres. Certainly not arranged in claustrophobic pairs with the spoons encroaching on my personal space in the boat.

I have a keen sense of the amount of space which it is right and proper for me to occupy, and rowing boats are most definitely in scope of this sense. Most of the club's eights are spacious and capacious, leaving adequate room for me to do my blade work. A single is neither spacious nor capacious, but I don't have to share that small space with three other people and six sculls beyond my control. Given that my sculling leaves a huge amount to be desired and that I still have difficulty in getting my two hands to do something reasonably similar at the same time, the prospect of an outing in a scratch crew in a quad was not immediately appealing. The excessive inboard length of the sculls served to make me feel even more like a poorly-coordinated orangutan, accentuating the awkwardness of the stroke.

The first few minutes were telling. Spoons dragged on the water. Even with one pair sitting the boat, stabilising it with their blades, the boat lurched from side to side. The short jaunt to Chiswick would seem terribly protracted.

My doubts dissolved as we returned under Barnes bridge. The strokes were strong, the timing secure, and the evening turning into one of those glorious summer moments when there is nothing I'd rather be doing than being in a boat. The sun was low in the sky, casting an increasingly orange streak across the river. The puddles from our blades reflected the turquoise sky, starkly contrasting with the orange glimmers from the setting sun. It was perfect. For a couple of strokes, the sculling was sweet, and the light was divine.

A duff stroke focused my attention on technique. I closed my eyes to concentrate on the tensions and forces in my body, the pull across my shoulders at the catch, holding my core during the drive, anchoring my finish. I love the sensation of sculling when singling, being in sole control of the motion of the boat. Reining in my indulgence in that sensation to scull together to the rhythm of a crew is for me like being in a warm sea and not being able to go swimming. I itch, I yearn for that freedom to take the rate down, stretch out and draw through long strokes in my own time.

But I can't do that. I have to concentrate. But it's so beautiful an evening. I want to indulge. I want to soak up the poetry of the motion, the light, the peace of the river amidst the city's activity. No doubt this would change the moment competing in a quad was on the cards, but at the moment, it's an opportunity to improve balance and blade work, and my sensitivity to boat feel. The setting is just making this a little more difficult than it needs to be.

A push on my wrist as my bow side scull hesitates in the water for a brief moment at the finish persuades me to concentrate on sculling rather than mentally composing the blog post I'll write later. It's agony. Such beauty, such poetry - crying out for appreciation. I have to ignore it, else I scull like a monkey. I close my eyes again to concentrate on the sensation, and open them to see only the back of the head of the woman in front.

A sculler's sunset

Photo from stevec77's Flickr stream