Plywood Boat Plans Australia | 10 top tips for coxing an expedition row

Plywood Boat Plans Australia

The successful completion of an expedition row boils down to the rowers taking a lot of strokes. A LOT of strokes. But good coxing can play a really valuable part in helping them with that. Follow these tips to keep your crew fast, informed, and happy.

Theyre in order of importance. The first three are purely technical. After that coxing creativity comes into play, but dont be alarmed if youre not an experienced cox: there are several helpful tools you can use to squeeze the most out of your crew. Not literally, obviously.

NB These tips apply whether the role of coxing is rotated through the members of the crew, or whether youre the dedicated (and I mean that in all senses of the word) cox for the whole trip.

Tip 1. Take the shortest line
Its one of the great contradictions of expedition rowing: weve chosen to do a long-distance row, but wed like it to be as short as possible.

Philosophically it may not make sense, but its true. A cox who steers well but says nothing is almost always preferable to an entertaining and motivational one who takes the scenic route.

And just in case anyone is reading this who either hasnt yet done much geometry at school or wasnt listening in that class, the shortest distance between two points is a straight line. (Although it IS a bit more complicated than that if youre rowing across a tidal seaway in events like the Celtic Challenge.)

Tip 2. Sit the boat

Nothing makes your or their backs hurt faster than an unnecessarily unbalanced boat. Be sensitive to it. Dont wait for them to ask you to do something about it. 

Of course, in a crew numbering x rowers, there are x+1 people who might not be sitting straight but this still means the chances are that you (the +1) are not the bad-balance bear. However, whilst a list to strokeside, say, may not be your fault, it IS your responsibility to ensure its eradicated. Dont blame individuals (unless there is a really obvious culprit, in which case someone else is at fault for having them in the crew) but rather delegate the solving of the problem to the rowers: "Were consistently a bit down on strokeside. Can anyone make any adjustments?"

My final point here is simple: scull. The only reasons I can think of to do a long-distance event sweep-oar are a) the event involves a special boat-type that can only be done sweep, such as the Sulkava churchboats race, or b) youre really, really bad at sculling.

Tip 3. Give data

Tell them times, distances gone or to the next waypoint, if youre using them, or lock, if your journey has them. 

This cox is keeping her crew informed.
And entertained.

When you give distances, do so in "round numbers", for example, every 5km. If you do that, they will trust you to keep telling them at each of those points. If they ask you how far/how long till, youve failed. Or theyre ill-disciplined.

Information = control. When they dont know where they are in the race, the whole enormity of it faces them and can understandably be overwhelming. But when they know where they are, they feel in control, and that means they feel  less stressed, can pace themselves effectively, and can mentally tick off the miles in their heads, which is a great psychological boost.

In many situations, you will have planned to break up the row timed sections punctuated by drinks pauses or cox-swaps. 30 minute stints are common. Generally, most people dont want to know how long into that 30 minute section they are till after half way through, as its a tad depressing. I would recommend telling them at 20 minutes gone, and then give them a 2 minute warning too, so that everyone can sort out in their own minds exactly what actions theyre going to take at that point. 

NB If you only give the 2 minute warning, youre wasting an opportunity for a motivational piece of information (10 minutes to go). "2 minutes to go" isnt motivational, its just logistical.

Tip 4. Tell them whats coming up
By definition, expedition rows take place on water which is not the crews home water, so the rowers dont know whats up ahead of them. If you tell them, it gives them micro-goals to look forward to and to attain, even if its just "Theres a bridge/corner in about 200m", "Theres a huge oak tree on the left just up ahead", or "Theres a motorboat coming towards us". 

Definitely keep telling them if theyre gaining on the crew in front, and give the distance to that crew, if youre close enough to judge.

"Were catching a large cruiser.
Im going to call for 10 firm and then to pull your blades
 across to get us past it..."

If youre catching up with a motor boat thats going in the same direction, the rowers will probably start to notice the disturbed water, noise and engine fumes before they even get to the point of having to row through its wash. So warn them in advance. Then they know whats going on.

If you see a rower look round, youre not doing your job properly (or, once again, theyre ridiculously ill-disciplined).

As with omitting to tell them that there are 10 minutes to a break, its a massive waste of a motivational opportunity suddenly to easy the crew at a lock or scheduled stop point without warning them in advance. It would be like suddenly telling a child that its Christmas without them having known it was coming (OK, I know that would be impossible, but I hope you see my point). Half the fun is the anticipation.

Tip 5. Praise the crew!

A cheerful cox. Despite the rain.

Marathon runners generally print their names on their numbers on the fronts of their shirts. This is because spectators will then use their name, shouting things like "Well done, Matt!" and "Go on, Amy!". Spectators who are total strangers, of course, whom Matt and Amy will never see again, and quite possibly wouldnt much like even if they did. Yet when youre in pain, the value of praise and encouragement is multiplied at least 5-fold.

So, without over-doing it, pay compliments, both to the crew as a whole and to individuals: "Great work, guys, going really strong!", "Lovely rhythm, Hannah", "Awesome finishes, Cath". That kind of thing. But its got to sound – and be – convincing.

Tip 6. Be entertaining, but only if you can pull it off
You will know if you can or not. I used to travel to work on a train where the guard told the first half of a joke after we left the station where I got on, and then told us the punchline just before we reached the terminus. He probably got sacked for it, but us commuters loved it. 

A little planning can help here: Im going to try and learn a handful of funny-definitions-of-words from The Uxbridge English Dictionary  as used in the British Radio 4 comedy show "Im Sorry I Havent a Clue" before this years 160km row round Lake Geneva. Ill be inserting items such as "Celery: A bit like a cellar" and "Busking: A man who owns lots of buses" here and there. 

The cox of a schoolgirl crew I knew spent much of the 50km Boston Marathon reading a Harry Potter book to them. They liked it: it wouldnt suit all crews. In a similar vein, I read excerpts from  a very amusing blog about rowing across the Atlantic to my crew one year in the  Tour du Léman. It put our "mere" 160km row into perspective too.

Humour is not only good because everyone likes a laugh, but also because its a strong and positive emotion. And strong emotions help inspire them to greater effort.

Tip 7. Its about them not you
They dont want to hear about your sore bum, or how hard it is looking into the sun to see where youre steering, for instance. Sure, these things are true, but neither is as hard as rowing. The German word for "cox" is the same as the word for "tax", so make sure that youre definitely a value-added tax.

Tip 8. Dont overdo it
Whilst coxing styles vary, in general, when coxing a normal training outing for a racing crew, involving both pieces and paddling, it is entirely appropriate for the cox to talk quite a lot – co-ordinating the crews focus, and tidying up individual technical details. 

Cox differently on an expedition.

When coxing long-distance rows, say a lot less. Having said that, dont be silent. The data described in Tip 3 is the bare minimum.

And be very careful about coaching. If you do, be very specific (e.g. "2, youre consistently a bit early" rather than "Watch your timing in the bows" which leads both bow and 2 to wonder who is wrong and whether theyre early or late), and dont labour the point. Now is not the time.

Tip 9: Dont play music over a cox-box
This will flatten your cox box battery in no time. I think this is because the frequencies in music are much more complex than those used in speaking, so amplifying it uses more power.

Tip 10: Find out whether the others mind if you talk to stroke

Is it OK to talk to her? Or not?

Talking to stroke is contentious. As a small person, I generally sit in the bows of expedition rowing crews. And Im not bothered at all if stroke and the cox are having a quiet chat that I cant hear. But I know some crew members find this intolerable.

Balanced with that, though, is the fact that there is that little bit more weight on the shoulders of stroke (both literally, if the rest of our catches arent super sharp, and metaphorically), so getting a little distraction from the pain by exchanging a few words with stroke is well-deserved.

So you just need to find out where the others stand on this before you start, and decide whether, on balance, the benefits outweigh the drawbacks.

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Boat Plans Arch Davis | What people REALLY want to know about long distance rowing sadly

Boat Plans Arch Davis

You plan, you train, you organise, and then you struggle, you overcome and you achieve! And what is it that other people want to know about your gruelling but wonderful feat of oar-powered endurance? The blisters? Sometimes. The scenery? Maybe. The weather? Yes, fair point.

But with depressing frequency, what they ALMOST ALWAYS want to know about are... the toilet arrangements. So I shouldnt have been surprised when the web analytics for this blog revealed that someone had reached it by searching on the phrase "when long distance rowers use the bathroom". I kid you not. However, since at least someone wants to know, and in the interests of encouraging expedition rowing by sharing my experiences, here is the "bog blog"...

Before I start, though, please would American readers of this blog (as the anonymous searcher must surely have been) get over the fact that an item into which you relieve yourself is NOT a bathroom. It may be IN a bathroom. But even in polite UK parlance its a toilet, a loo, a lavatory, or possibly a urinal. Thank you.

Going to the toilet in an ocean rowing boat
Of course, the full facilities of mains plumbing cant possibly be available in any outdoor, movable vehicle. That said, yachts have heads (sheer sanitary luxury), and caravans have portaloos (with SEATS for goodness sake).

When it comes to ocean rowing boats (arguably a very small yacht without a mast, or a self-propelled, floating caravan), things are more rudimentary or, as its practitioners generally say, "bucket and chuck it".

Yet whilst the basic principle is easy to grasp, there are a couple of details that its well worth knowing before you, er... go there yourself:

• Put some water in the bucket before you sit down.
• Take a toilet brush. I trust that you can work out why. One ocean rowing crew accidentally dropped theirs overboard. Horrified at the prospect of having to live without it, they rapidly fashioned a replacement from a spoon, a nailbrush and some cable ties. No, I wasnt sure why they had the nailbrush either, but thank goodness they did.

The picture above inadvertently shows the full range of options my husband and I had aboard for "going potty", on our 75 day Atlantic row (thats my leg on the right).

Youll notice that there are two yellow buckets: well, we you wouldnt want only to have one and then to drop it over the side, would you? Despite having the spare, both buckets are also attached to long ropes to reduce the chance of accidentally throwing it overboard whilst emptying it.

The normal wire handles have been replace with rope handles, stitched to a rope that runs round the under side of the rim of the bucket – well, we all know how often those wire handles come off, and as theyd likely also rust at sea, we wanted to be sure that all aspects of bucket engineering were solid, and were going to stay that way.

Incidentally, we also had a black bucket aboard which was used for occasional clothes, body, and eating utensil washing. Colour coding is vital. Your brain is addled at sea, and you NEVER want to use the wrong bucket by mistake.

A receptacle for light relief
Next to the bucket on the right is a milk carton. This was my husbands, and is the rowing-boat equivalent of a urinal. Having the inbuilt-handle makes it easier to use on a rocking deck than a plain wide-necked bottle, if you get my drift. And the lid can be replaced after use (and emptying), to ensure that any odours are contained, which is nice, even in such a well-ventilated environment.

Finally, by the left-hand bucket you can just make out the black net bag (tied to a fixing point on the boat) which contained the current packet of baby wipes. My advice here is to go for the higher-quality products which have a hard plastic resealable opening. You really dont want the packet to get infiltrated by salt water. Using seawater-soaked baby wipes leads to skin that is not in the slightest bit as soft as a babys bottom. Trust me on this.

Of course, some ocean rowers find the whole bucket thing a hassle and unhygienic, and make use of the fact that the sides of the boat are about 10" wide and flat, and just sit themselves down on that with their posteriors hanging over the edge. The choice is yours, and sharks hardly ever come that close.

(I cant believe Ive just written six paragraphs on this subject, but theres more...)

Going to the loo on a long-distance row thats shorter than a day
The assumption here is that you get in your boat in the morning, row for some or all of the day, and get out in the evening. Maybe for several days on end, but thats irrelevant. The point is that you should be able to avoid any need to do a "number two" whilst afloat. Make sure all crew-members understand this, and plan your tea or coffee drinking beforehand accordingly to have the required effect.

So, girls, were talking about weeing...

This object is affectionately known as Jemima because it looks faintly like a duck, with a handle along its back, thats had the top half of its head chopped off.

Jemima proved to be the winner from several similar designs weve tried over the years, all bought from websites that sell what are known as "mobility aids". Theres usually a section called "bathroom" or "toileting", once you get past the walking frames and wheelchair cushions. Checking one such site just now, I was amused to see one model described as a "cygnet urinal"; to us, Jemima is far from an ugly duckling.

On several occasions Ive come across women rowers at the 160km Tour du Léman who proudly tell me that theyve got a Shewee. These are very useful little objects for all sorts of situations, but in my view, theyre useless for rowing boats, for which theyre not designed. The main issue is that they dont have their own "chamber", so youd need to hold a bottle for them to funnel into, and this requires an extra hand you dont have when you also need one to hold the Shewee and another to hold yourself steady. And really, dont underestimate how useful that handle is on a Jemima.

Ive almost always done the Tour du Léman in an all-womens crew, and my various female crew mates have always agreed that the toilet arrangements are a good reason for this choice. However, if you have to row in a mixed crew, ladies, the options are:

1. Keep your Jemima up in the bow seat and arrange your swaps so that the girls use it up there, and the blokes dont turn round on pain of pain.
2. Have a cape.

How to pull your shorts down in a rowing boat
You need to have ever tried this to find out how hard it is... In general, when doing the Tour du Léman in a coxed quad, we try to use Jemima only when coxing, so as to limit change-over time, although weeing whilst steering is a skill. In that case, you just kneel up, pull em down, and away you go.

But if you need to use Jemima (or "duck", as we say) whilst on a rowing seat, youll find this works well:

• Push your rowing seat behind you so youre sitting on the deck between the slides. 
• Lie back onto the seat, so its in the middle of your back. 
• Lift your bum off the deck, and you should be able to pull those shorts down fairly easily with one hand. The damper and sweatier you are, the harder it is, of course, and particularly tight-fitting shorts dont help either (my favourite long-distance rowing shorts are a size too large for this reason). And all-in-ones are right out.

Then, just sit up, put on hand behind you on the deck to support you, lift your bum up, insert duck and... you get the idea.

And that, Im relieved to say (groan), is all I have to say on the subject. Do share your experiences in the comments if you have other advice to add. Just keep it clean, kids!

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