What happens at a regatta

The term head raceHead raceA long fall race, usually about three miles, with boats starting one at a time against the clock.All the rowing words probably comes from the headwaters of a river, as though the races were so long they started at the headwaters and ended where the river meets the ocean. In reality they are around three miles, and last between fifteen and twenty five minutes or more, depending on the crew, the boat and the conditions of the day.

Head races run as a time trial. Crews queue above the starting line in a predetermined order, then cross the line at regular intervals. The race is long and often involves many turns. This is where the coxswainsCoxswainThe one facing forward. They steer, call the race plan, and keep eight people rowing as one.All the rowing words shine, steering the best line they can toward the finish.

This format gives you the chance to watch every boat go past your spot, but it will give you no idea at all who is winning. Results used to mean spreadsheets, or worse, arithmetic by hand, posted on a bulletin board you had to go and find. These days there is usually a website with something close to live results.

Because the intervals between crews are short, around twenty seconds, faster crews can catch and pass slower ones. This is as exciting as rowing gets. Crews that do the passing talk about it for months. Crews that get passed are considerably more circumspect in their analysis of the race.

How to watch a head race

Be warned, this demands patience. Find a good spot on the bank, plan to cheer like mad as your athlete goes past, and prepare to entertain yourself for the other ninety nine percent of the time you are there. Bring friends you can talk to.

Much of your athlete’s day revolves around preparing the boat to race and getting it ready to travel home. Even when the racing is done there is usually a lot to do off the water with their coach. So plan on letting your athlete stay with the team while you go home, or to the coffee shop, or back to the shoreline for a nap.

We give parents the basic race day information, but we give your athlete the details and hold them responsible for knowing when to be where and what to wear. Some will make a mistake or two. That is part of learning to be a responsible teammate.

Arrival

Athletes are given a time to be at the boathouse. For an away regatta they get on a bus at an extremely early hour. Riding the bus is club policy and there are no exceptions. Departure times go out by email and the coaches reinforce them. The buses do not wait for late rowers, and late rowers cannot drive themselves or be driven by a parent. So please be on time.

At the site, crews unload the boats from the trailers and rig them, which means attaching the riggersRiggerThe metal frame bolted to the side of the boat that holds the oar.All the rowing words. The boats sit in slings, which are metal and cloth stands that look a lot like a hammock chair. The boat area is generally off limits to parents. Once the boats are rigged, athletes go to the team tent to eat, rest or find their friends.

The time before racing is stressful for athletes. They may laugh and look relaxed with their teammates, but any attempt by you to join in the fun is generally met with unhappy comments. Your experience with your child may vary. Proceed with caution.

Getting ready to race

Preparations start about an hour and a half before race time. Once that begins, please do not try to interact with your child. The squad warms up on land, sometimes with a short run or dynamic stretches, then takes the oars down to the launch area.

Each boat meets its coach at some point in the warm up. The coach sets the goals, the strategy, the technical focus and the emotional tone. Because they cannot talk to the crew once the boat is on the water, this is the last real coaching they will do.

The rules mean a coach effectively cannot coach during the warm up or the race. They have to spectate, the same as you. When your child’s boat is on the water for an important race, the coach will be a bundle of nerves. They may have a practised look of calm, but they will be surging with adrenaline. Not the best moment for a chat.

About fifty minutes before racing, the crew gets hands on the boat, which means standing beside it waiting for the coxswain’s call. If there is no coxswain, a rower is designated to do the job of moving the boat. They will be quiet and focused as they carry it to the water and set it down gently, then put the oars in, sit in on the call, and shove off.

On the water they warm up: drills by fours and sixes, partial strokes, outside arm only, pauses at set points of the stroke. All of it warms up the body, unifies the crew and focuses them. Then hard strokes to build pressure and rate, called tens or twenties, or something fancier like builders. Then the start sequence.

A start sequence is a series of short strokes to get a stopped boat moving. Coaches liken it to pushing a stalled car: run at it and whack it and you bounce off and land on the ground. Instead you set yourself against the work and push patiently. A typical sequence might be three quarters, half, half, three quarters, full, then twenty strokes at a high rate, then a shift to race cadence. There are as many start sequences as there are stars in the sky, and coaches pick the one that suits the crew in front of them. A crew that comes apart after fifteen strokes does fifteen.

Spectators usually gather in the last three to five hundred meters. You will watch most of the race by craning your neck at a set of bows coming toward you, which makes it very hard to see what is happening, because the course runs almost along your line of sight. At big regattas there may be announcers. At most races there are not, and the order only becomes clear as the boats come close.

Which brings us to the parent angle. As the race nears, it will look like the crews closest to you are moving much faster than the ones further away. This is an optical illusion. Occasionally lane one really does sprint through the field, but most of the time the order is reasonably stable and it only looks otherwise. Do not be fooled.

And especially do not profess to know what happened. If you tell your athlete they were ahead until the last bit, or ask why they let lane one through, you will be subject to much eye rolling. There is no scorn like that of your own child.

Rowers work sitting down, facing backwards. Their position is called their seat and is named by where it sits in the boat, so four seat is the fourth from the bowBowThe front of the boat, and the first part across the finish line.All the rowing words. The seat itself is mounted on wheels running in tracks along the boat, and their feet are fixed in shoes. That moving seat is what lets a rower use their legs, which are the strongest muscles in the body, and it is where the power comes from.

The stroke splits into two movements. The driveDriveThe part where the legs push and the boat moves. Rowing is mostly legs, not arms.All the rowing words is the part with the blade in the water, from the catchCatchThe moment the blade enters the water and the stroke begins.All the rowing words, where the blade goes in, to the releaseReleaseThe blade coming out of the water at the end of the drive. Also called the finish.All the rowing words, where it comes out. That is when force is being applied, and essentially all of the physical demand of rowing lives there.

The recoveryRecoveryThe slide back up to the catch, ready to do it again.All the rowing words is the part with the blade out of the water, from the release back to the catch. The name means both that the blade is being carried back to the start and that the rower gets a moment, a small one, to recover.

On the drive they start compressed toward the stern, legs bent, body reaching forward from the hips, arms straight. Then they push the legs, open the back and draw the arms in, roughly in that order, though it varies crew to crew. On the recovery it runs backwards: arms out, body over the hips, legs compressing until they are coiled up again, with the hands lifting at the end to place the blade.

Here is the thing worth watching for. Compare an experienced crew with a first-year one. The experienced crew moves in unison, sits taller, the movements are subtler, the oars follow a more exacting path, and the bodies are in rhythm with each other. Once you can see that, you can see rowing.