Sunday, August 8, 2010

Jaws

Bob Sharkey has a second boat, appropriately named Jaws. Coach Dennis worked on the pitch of the starboard oarlock. It seemed to work well. The oarlocks had been lowered as far down as possible as well. The last time I tried it the buttons on my oars would hit the riggers and ride out from the oarlocks - very queasy-making! Before taking her out, I added a couple of spacers under each oarlock. That worked, too.

Kirsten was as excited as I was to try out the new boat. If you don't know me, I'm used to rowing a much wider, much more stable boat. My single is a Maas Aero named the Weeble. As in 'they wobble but they dont' fall down.' Jaws is a narrow racing boat, so any errors in balance can quickly tip you over. I had a lot of experience from the Weeble to draw on, but I still had to take it slow and one step at a time. I started out with one stroke at a time, working up later to almost full slide.

We took a little tour around the 'bowl' at our end of Portage Lake. Later Kirsten manned the camera as I did a row-by. I'm skimming the oars, but I was pretty happy with my form. I'm starting up the slide a bit to soon, perhaps.