Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 21.djvu/44

Rh 32 R O W R W proceed to settle himself firmly upon his thwart, sitting quite square and upright but not too near the edge of it, because if so the chances are that the lower part of the back will not be straight, and if his seat is not firm he cannot aid in balancing the boat. He should sit about three quarters of the thwart aft in an ordinary racing boat, about an inch and a half from the edge, and he must be exactly opposite the handle of his oar. His feet must be planted firmly against the stretcher and immediately opposite his body and oar, the heel as well as the ball of the foot pressing against the stretcher, and tle two heels close together with the toes wide apart, so as to keep the knees open and separate. Of course if the pupil sits fair and square, and immediately opposite the handle of his oar, he will be at one side and not in the centre of the boat. The stretcher, it may be added, should bo as short ns possible con- veniently for clearing the knees and for exercising complete control over the oar. The body should be upright, not bent forward and sunk down upon the trunk ; the shoulders should be thrown back, the chest out, and the elbows down close alongside the flanks. The oar should be held firmly, but withal lightly, in both hands, not clutched and cramped as in a vice the outside hand close to the end of the handle, with the fingers above and the thumb underneath it, and the inside hand, or that nearest the body of the oar, from an inch and a half to 2 inches away from its fellow, but grasping the oar more convexly than the latter, the thumb being kept under- neath. The forearms should be below the level of the handle, and the wrists dropped and relaxed, the oar lying flat and feathered upon the surface of the water. The diverse positions of the two hands and wrists enable the oar to be wielded with greater facility than if the)' were alike, and allow both arms to be stretched out perfectly straight, a crooked arm being perhaps the least pardonable fault in rowing. In taking the stroke the body should be inclined forwards with the backbone straight, the stomach well out and down between the legs, the chest forward and elevated as much as possible. The knees must be pressed slightly outwards; and the shoulders should come moderately forward, but perfectly level, and at an equal height. The arms should play freely in the shoulder joints, and should be perfectly straight from the shoulders to the wrists ; the action of the hips also should be free. The inside wrist, however, must be somewhat raised, and the outside one be bent slightly round, in order that the knuckles' may be parallel to the oar, and the oar itself be firmly grasped with both hands, not with the tips of the fingers but with the whole of the fingers well round it, and each one feeling the handle distinctly ; the knuckles of the thumbs should be about an inch and a half or 2 inches apart. In reaching forward the hands should be shot out straight from the body without the least pause, and as soon as the oar has passed the knees the wrists should be raised to bring the blade at right angles to the water preparatory to dipping it, and when the arms are at their extreme limit, which will be just over the stretcher, the oar should be struck down firmly and decisively into the water until covered up to the shoulder, and the weight of the body be thrown entirely upon it, by which the beginning of the stroke is caught, and the stroke itself pulled through ; in a word, the pupil should, as it were, knit himself up, and then spring back like a bow when the string is loosened, bringing the muscles of his back and legs into play. The stroke should be finished with the arms and shoulders, the elbows being kept close to the sides, and the shoulders down and back, the head still up, and the chest out, and the oar itself be brought straight home to the chest, the knuckles touching the body about an inch or less below the bottom of the breast bone where the ribs branch oft" ; when there the hands should be dropped down and then turned over, and shot out again close along the legs, the body following at once. Care should likewise be taken not to lessen the force applied to the oar as the stroke draws to a conclu- sion, but to put the whole strength of the arms and shoulders into the finish of the stroke, where it will naturally diminish quite fast enough, as the oar forms an obtuse angle with that portion of the boat before the rowlock. To effect a quick recovery the oack must be kept straight, the knees must not be dropped too low, and the muscles of the body, especially of the stomach, must be used to enable the pupil to get forward for the next stroke. At the same time, no matter how minute and precise written instructions may be, they can never impart the knowledge that can be picked up by watching the actions of an accomplished oarsman for the space of five minutes ; hence the imperative necessity of a practical exponent of the principles of the art in contradistinction to a merely theoretical "coach." The foregoing are the essentials of rowing, and have been given at some length and in detail as the motions are necessarily very com- plicated. The operations are much the same whether a person be rowing on a fixed or sliding seat, but a novice should be taught to row on a fixed seat, and Tie will afterwards be easily able to acquire the art of sliding, which may soon be done from following the accompanying directions. The oarsman, in getting forward, should extend his arms to their full length, and with the assistance of the straps on the stretcher, simultaneously draw himself as close up to the latter as he can, his knees being slightly and symmetri- cally opened, and the body reached forward as much as possible, the back being kept quite straight. On catching hold of the water, the knees must be gradually straightened and the body thrown back, the two actions going on simultaneously, so that the legs are straight out by the time the stroke is finished and not before, the body and shoulders at the end of the stroke being thrown well back. The body is then recovered to the upright position from the hips, the hands thrown forward, and by the time they are just past the knees the body is being drawn forward, and the knees bent. The motion then begins the same as before. (E. D. B.) Boat- Racing in America. This pastime can be traced back to the beginning of the present century. The earliest important affair was in 1811, a sectional match, New York City against all Long Island, four-oared barges, with coxswains, from Harsimus, New Jersey, to the flag-staff on the Battery. New York won easily, and such was the popular enthusiasm over the race that its boat, the " Knickerbocker, was suspended in a public museum, where it remained for fifty-four years, a constant recipient of public admira- tion until destroyed by fire in July 1865. Since this historic con- test no year hasbeen without boat races. At that time the words amateur and professional were unknown on the water ; the Castle Garden Amateur Boat Club Association America's first avowedly amateur club was founded in 1834. There had been informal clubs and desultory racing at Yale College as early as 1833, but the first regular organization was in March 1843. Harvard followed in September 1844, and Yale and Harvard first met on the water at Lake Winnepiseogee, New Hampshire, August 3, 1852 ; since 1878 they have met annually at New London, Conn. In 1865 Harvard, Yale, Trinity, and Brown formed the Union College Regatta Association, which lasted three years. The Racing Association of American Colleges, which at one time included sixteen colleges, died in 1876. In 1883 Bowdoin, Columbia, Cornell, Princeton, Rutgers, University of Pennsylvania, and Wesleyan formed the Intercollegiate Racing Association, which still flourishes and gives annual regattas. The control of amateur racing in America belongs to the National Association of Amateur Oarsmen, founded in 1873, whose member- ship includes all the better class of amateur boat clubs. Its management is vested in an Executive Committee of nine members, three of whom are elected at each annual meeting of the association. The rulings of this committee are subject to review, approval, or reversal, at each annual meeting of the full association. This association gives an annual open amateur regatta, similar to the Royal Henley Regatta in being the chief aquatic event of the year, but unlike it in not being rowed always on the same course, but moving about from year to year having, since 1873, been rowed at Philadelphia, Newark, Troy, and Watkins (N.Y.), Detroit, Washington, and Boston. There are in the United States eleven regularly organized amateur rowing associations, formed by the union of amateur rowing clubs and giving each year one or more regattas. These associations are the National Association of Amateur Oarsmen, the North- Western Amateur Rowing Association, the Mississippi Valley Amateur Rowing Association, the Passaic River Amateur Rowing Association, the Intercollegiate Rowing Association, the Harlem Regatta Association, the Louisiana State Amateur Rowing Association, the Virginia State Rowing Associa- tion, the Schuylkill Navy, the Upper Hudson Navy, and the Kill von Kull Regatta Association. At English regattas it is usual to start three boats in a heat, sometimes four, five being the utmost limit, whereas at Saratoga, in the great regattas of 1874 and 1875, there were started abreast, in four separate races, eleven singles (twice), thirteen coxswainless fours, ana thirteen coxswainless sixes. The primary division of American racing craft is into (a) lap- streaks or clinkers, built of wood iu narrow streaks with overlapping edges at each joint, and (6) smooth bottoms, made of wood or paper, and having a fair surface, without projecting joint or seam. Lap- streak boats are, however, now rarely used save in barge races. Then follows the subdivision into barges, which are open inrigged boats, gigs, which are open outrigged boats, and shells, which are covered outrigged boats. These three classes of boats are further subdivided, in accordance with the means of propulsion, into single, double, and quadruple sculling boats, and pair-, four-, six-, and eight- oared boats. In America the double-scull is more frequent than the pair, and the six-oar much more common than the eight-oar. The sliding seat is now being gradually superseded by various styles of rolling seats, in which the actual seat travels backward and forward on frictionless wheels or balls. The best of these de- vices run more easily, are cleaner, and less liable to accident than the ordinary sliding seat. English oarsmen use the sliding seat as a means of making their old accustomed stroke longer and more powerful. American oarsmen hold that what is needed by an oars- man is not the addition of the long slide to the old-fashioned long swing, but the almost total substitution of slide for swing, the transfer of the labour from back to legs in fact, a totally new style. ROWLANDSON, THOMAS (1756-1827), caricaturist, was born in Old Jewry, London, in July 1756, the son of a tradesman or city merchant. It is recorded that " he could