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 Catamaran | A palapa in Yelapa beats a condo in Redondo !

Boat Plans Catamaran

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Boat Designs And Plans | Reefing

Boat Designs And Plans

With my Goat Island Skiff, I can tuck in three different reefs.  Below is full sail vs. "Reef #1" and "Reef #2" and "Handkerchief reef" for the days when its blowing 30+ and Im by myself (this hopefully doesnt happen on a regular basis).

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Plywood Boat Plans | Sydney GTS43 Review

Plywood Boat Plans

The GTS43 was designed by Jason Ker and is intended as a racer/cruiser. Its pretty clear that by racer/cruiser they mean racer that has enough amenities below to accommodate the family for an occasional weekend cruise. But make no mistake, this boat is really all about performance. It caught my eye because the designer and builder have collaborated to create a unique and distinctive yacht that I think is going to attract a lot of attention among those who need a few amenities in their race boats.

The GTS43 looks fast under main, kite and staysl.

Jason Ker is not a household name in the USA but over the last twenty years this British designer has built an enviable reputation with his IRC racing yachts. The builder, originally based in Australia, has contracted with AD Boats in Split, Croatia to produce the GTS43 as well as the new GTS37. As you may know, this company also builds the Salona line of yachts. AD is owned by the Prevent Group, a multinational manufacturing corporation based in Wolfsberg, Germany that serves a variety of commercial and industrial markets. I think this is a business structure that we will see more of in the future. Yacht building has become so technology driven and capital intensive that for all practical purposes, the small independent boat builders are finding it harder and harder to survive.

The GTS43 represents a very different approach to hull design than more conventional racer/cruisers such as the Beneteau First or Elan lines. In the plan view it looks similar to other IRC inspired racer/cruisers, with a fine bow and wide stern. The same can be said of the boat in the profile view. But where those boats have full, or chined stern sections, the 43 has radically flaired sections aft.

Beneteau First 40. This Farr design incorporates what we think of as a conventional stern shape.
 Photo courtesy of Yachtworld.com

Elan 400  sports the currently fashionable chines.

Flaired stern on the GTS43.  

Why, you might ask, has Ker designed this boat with a stern that is so different from the more conventional Beneteau and Elan, or most other IRC racers. I think the answer may lie with his interpretation of the IRC rating system, or he may simply like the looks of this stern. I dont have a lines plan for this hull but we can make some judgments based on the photos. Lets deal with the stern first. The hull near the waterline is actually relatively narrow by todays standards so there is not a lot of reserve buoyancy there. This, combined with the somewhat slab sided midship sections of the hull leads me to think this boat may have a lower prismatic coefficient than a typical IRC racer. This means the boat will not require a lot of horsepower to get up to speed, but is likely to generate a bigger stern wave, which we refer to as induced drag as it moves through the water at hull speed. One benefit of the very wide stern is that the crew weight can be placed well outboard and aft, where it does the most good in heavy air. Here are some statistics:
LOA: 43 feet
Beam: 13.78 feet
Draft: 9.02 feet
Displacement: 15,320 pounds
Sail area (IJ+PE): 1,029 sq. ft.
Disp/Length: 86.0
SA/D: 26.8

This view provides an indication of the fine waterlines forward and the extreme flair aft. Photo courtesy of Sydney Yachts.

Maximum beam is carried all the way to the transom. The cockpit is spacious and side decks minimal.   

The high SA/D and low D/L indicate a powerful sailing machine that will demand a good helmsman and solid crew work when the breeze is up, but in return it will deliver stellar performance. Of course when its just you and the wife out for a sail, you may want to tuck in a reef and put the small jib up, which is a small compromise for such a high performance boat.

The cabin trunk is an interesting blister shape, with the aft ends of the cabin fairing into the wide cockpit coamings. The seats are tucked behind the cabin trunk, leaving lots of room in the aft half of the cockpit for working crew. The twin helms are located well aft, but it looks like there is enough space there for the helmsman and tactician.  The mainsheet traveler is located on the cockpit sole just forward of the helms, with the mainsheet winches within easy reach. This is another boat with an Admirals cup type mainsheet arrangement.

The rig incorporates a carbon fiber two spreader mast.  The mainsail luff length is about 60 feet and the foot is 19 feet. This is a big sail that will require some muscle to handle.  The jibs are non overlapping so tacking will actually be fairly easy. Notice the long, fixed bowsprit. It does not include an anchor roller so you may want to ask them to work on that when you place your order for a new GTS43.

I dont have any drawings or photos of the underbody of the boat, but Ker states that the keel incorporates a thin fin and bulb. My guess is that the rudder is also thin, deep and very efficient.

This is the keel on a Ker designed 46 footer. You can assume that the keel on the GTS43 is similar. Photo courtesy of Yachtworld.com

The bowsprit is not retractable.

The GTS 43 is  what I call a "live ballast" boat, which derives much of its righting moment from crew on the rail as shown here.

This boat has reasonably livable accommodations that would make cruising for a week or so tolerable for the family. The forward end of the boat has a snug v-berth which might be a good place for kids.
The dinette in the salon is smallish and offset well to port and the settee opposite is also situated well outboard. This leaves plenty of room amidships for packing chutes, which is important on a boat of this type. There are provisions for pilot berths above the dinette and settee. The nav station is large and has lots of storage space. The galley, opposite the nav station, is small for a 43 foot cruising yacht, but almost luxurious compared to the typical race-boat galley. There is a pair of private quarter cabins aft, each with a hanging locker and a pilot berth. Overall, while this is not what I would call a pretty interior, it is very functional. I could imagine spending a week or so aboard.

The v-berth looks fairly tight.

Lots of light and space in this limited but functional interior.

A single sink, two burner stove and limited counter space. 

It seems to me that the racing world is becoming more separate from cruising.  These days there are many forty foot daysailers on the market that make no pretense of being cruise-able.  This was almost unheard of twenty years ago. I give Sydney Yachts credit for attempting to bridge that gap and producing a racer that can be cruised even if its just for a week at the island. For more information about the GTS43 visit Sydneyyachts.com

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Boat Plans Aluminum | A tiller for SEI

Boat Plans Aluminum

Laminating a curved item such as a tiller is one of the more rewarding jobs. A gracefully curved and very strong tiller with the gluelines accentuating the curves can add a nice touch to the boat, and its not hard to do.
Heres "me" making a tiller for SEI.

A tiller for SEI.

Now SEI being a double ender has the rudder a little further away from the skippers hand than is usual in a transom sterned boat so needs a longer tiller than would otherwise be the case.  That’s consideration number one, consideration number two was the shape, then consideration number three was what to make it from.

I didn’t have a suitable piece wide enough to cut the shape from in one piece, and friend Bill Simpson had given me an interesting piece of wood that had come from a big shipping pallet.  Who knows what it is, but its light, tough, is close grained and glued well.  It is not so easy to work with a hand plane, the fibers being long and tough don’t cut so well, but wood like that generally machines well, so I figured that being much too narrow, I’d laminate the tiller.

The tiller slot in the rudder stock ( rudder head in some languages ) being 27 mm wide I sliced up the wood with the sawbench, cutting first to make two 35 mm pieces out of the 70plus wide piece to give me room to plane it down to the 27mm width, then splitting that into 5mm lamells.

I took a piece of scrap ply down to the boat, propped it in place and drew the shape of the tiller thereon.  Reproduced that on the plywood floor in the boatshed, screwed the laminating clamp blocks into place and mixed up some glue.

There is not a lot of curve in this tiller, I like the “hand end” to be about 100mm above the knee when sitting at the helm, and the final position will be set by shaping the haft end where it sits in the tapered slot in the rudder stock.  So with only a gentle curve to accommodate this was an easy job to lay up and clamp.

The shape drawn on the plywood boatshed floor, and the clamping blocks screwed in place, the lamells are laid out in order. Note that the tiller is much deeper at one end and finer at the handle end, so there are more layers at the "thick" end, no need to have it the same depth all the way.  Im read to start applying glue.

Glue applied, priming the one and laying the glue on the other for each layer, the whole set was layed on the supports, then clamps with little pads under the clamps feet were fitted, just lightly, then gradually tightened to bring the 12 lamells into the curve. Easy peasy, a little at a time but with that many layers in there the amount of force applied between the many clamps is considerable, so it pays to just be patient, a little at a time works well.

All glued, and clamped up. Its time to go and do something else for a day or so.

Next day with the glue all set, the first job was to plane it to the correct thickness, so it was with a scrub plane, that’s an ordinary block plane, in this case a Stanley number 4, with the blade sharpened with a round in the edge so the corners don’t dig in, that I cut all the glue squeeze out away and scrubbed that side down to fairly flat.

The edges of the layup don’t match perfectly so there is a bit of material to remove, that’s why the lamells are 35 mm for a finished thickness of 27 mm.

All good, now its time to get all the bumps off and the blank planed down to the correct thickness.

With one side fairly flat and the bumps of glue removed I put the blank through the planer, flat side down and the other side getting planed down.  Three passes got it down straight and true, then flipped it over and trued up the side I’d hand planed.

In action with the scrub plane. Note that I have a heap of these Stanley number 4s, 9 I think, and several have their blades ground for particular purposes such as this.  I watch the shelves down the back of a couple of favourite junkshops and if I see one at under $20 Ill buy it, do a little work on it it if needed, and put it on the shelf with its brothers and sisters. Youd be surprised at how often I use more than one on a job.

Careful measureing, still well over the 27 mm I needed, so more passes through the planer, taking care to remove a few little defects on the way, and when it was close, I tried the fit in the tiller slot, a couple of very fine cuts in the planer and I was happy with that.

Then the shape was drawn on one side of the tiller blank, and the shape cut with the bandsaw, in fact careful use of a jigsaw would have done it, or even a Japanese razor saw using the ripsaw side of the blade http://www.duckworksbbs.com/tools/pullsaws/index.htm

Either  of these would do fine as long as attention was paid to keeping it perpendicular to the surface being cut through.

Action with the router, that edge near the power tool is now nicely rounded over, it took about 30 seconds.  Note that I was given that old beast of a router by my elderly uncle, he thinks its probably 40 years old, today youd get one like that for $10 or so and it works just fine. Its much simpler than todays flash harry ones, and I much prefer it for heavier use. Ive a little laminate trimmer for very light work but this is the workhorse when there is serious stuff to do.

With the shape cut, the edges were trued up with a random orbit sander,  the piece clamped to the edge of the bench then a router with a 12mm radius bit employed to round the edges. Remember not to round the haft where it fits into the tiller slot, that just needs a very small round with sandpaper.

With some light sanding, its done.  Looks sweet, looks much harder to make than it really is.

Just a few finishing touches to be added. I cant wait to use it for real.

I’ll varnish it, apart from the oarlock support blocks it’s the only varnish on the boat, it adds a nice finishing touch.

I’m not so far away from sailing SEI,  have to finish the rudder assembly, turn some wooden end blocks for the carbon fiber boom and yard, then rig it, and I’ll be at the mercy of the winds.

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Boat Plans Uk | Bocas del Toro

Boat Plans Uk

We left the city of David at 0700. Our destination, Almirante, lay about 150 miles north, on the Caribbean coast of Panama. To get there we first traveled on a rough two lane road through the village of Gualaca, about 20 miles from David. Gualaca is at about 1000 feet elevation and is cooler than the sweltering coast. The road then took us up through the Cordillera Central, the high mountains that form the backbone of Central America. As we climbed higher toward the continental divide, cattle ranches gave way to highland rainforest. Traveling slowly over and around washouts and potholes, we wound our way up through fog and dripping rainforest to the pass, which I estimate to be at roughly 5000 feet elevation. Descending over a series of tight switchbacks on the northern slope of the mountains we passed La Fortuna reservoir at about 3000 feet elevation. This beautiful lake was formed when a dam was built in 1984, bringing hydroelectric power to the region. The Caribbean side of Panama gets more rainfall than the Pacific side and we rolled past banana and coconut plantations while the rain came down, sometimes in torrents, sometimes in drizzles on the way to Almirante.

Waterfront in Almirante

All along the road we saw people dressed for the holiday waiting for the bus to Almirante. When we got there, throngs of people, nearly all black or mestizo, were crowded around the water taxi terminal trying to get a ride to one island or another before dark. After an hour’s wait we managed to get aboard a water taxi to Bocas town. With the 25 foot boat loaded down with about 35 people and their bags, the overloaded launch motored out of the tiny harbor and gathered speed for the ten mile trip to Bocas Town where we were met by our friends, Craig and Liz. We celebrated our arrival there with a beer at a waterfront café and then hired a small boat to take us the last few miles to Isla Bastimento, where the Red Frog Marina is located. Craig and Liz have been living here aboard their 42 foot catamaran, Salida, for the last four months.

Red Frog marina, named for the tiny red frogs that are native to the area, is located in a small cove on the northwest side of the island. It’s part of a small resort that includes a hostel, cabins for rent and an outdoor bar on the beach. The beach is on the other side of the island, facing the open Caribbean Sea and is well known to surfers who come here from around the world to surf the many good breaks on Bastimento and other islands that make up this part of the Panamanian coast. The surf wasn’t great when we got there but we had a good time bodysurfing and then hanging out at the beachfront bar afterward.

The Pizza Oven at Rana Azul

The next day we sailed over to an area called Tierra Oscura (the Dark Lands in Spanish) and anchored in a cove known as Rana Azul (Blue Frog). There we met an Austrian named Josef who came to this place a few years ago with his wife, Maria, and built a tiny bar/restaurant on the edge of the jungle to serve the occasional sailors and eco-tourists that manage to find the place. They had sailed all over the world aboard their 40 foot sailboat, and decided to settle in this lonely but strikingly beautiful little spot. Their specialty is pizza baked in an outdoor charcoal fired earthen oven and Panamanian Mojitos. Since there are no roads to this place they had to bring everything in by boat, including a rickety old karaoke machine. Many a sailor has made a fool of him- or herself with that rusty mike-with-the-bad-connections in his hand, us included.

In the morning we upped the anchor and sailed for Starfish Cove on Isla Colon, where the snorkeling was fabulous. Later we took the dinghy around the point and halfway up the Bocas del Drago channel to a beachfront restaurant called Yarisnoris. Here we found tourists, lots of them. All around us at the restaurant we heard tourists speaking French, German and Italian along with English and Spanish. The locals of this area speak Guari Guari, which is a hybrid of Jamaican English, Spanish and Guaymi. Guaymi is name of the indigenous natives of this part of Panama.   Back when the Trans Isthmus railroad, and later the canal, was built, the French and American contractors imported laborers from Jamaica, Barbados, and even China, to work on those projects. Intermarriage among these groups as well as the native population has resulted in a rich cultural history and linguistic patois that is fascinating to hear.

From Starfish Cove we sailed for Bocas Town and anchored outside the harbor. Here we could see the local fishermen paddling dugout canoes out to fish the reefs and shoals that abound in this area. I first saw a dugout in Almirante and thought that perhaps the locals made them for tourists, of which there are very few in that town. But, no, they are working boats used every day by the local fishermen. I looked closely at a few of them and found them to be finely crafted vessels carved from a single log. It is not uncommon to see a man with wife and a kid or two

Native Dugout Canoe

paddling a dugout to or from Bocas town. The other boat that the natives use is the fiberglass panga powered by an outboard. Strong, fast and utilitarian, pangas are long and narrow open boats that are used for cargo, fishing, water taxis and just about everything else. There are dozens of small islands in the Bocas del Toro area and very few roads, so people travel everywhere by boat.

The food here is what I would call a uniquely eclectic blend of creole, Carib, Panamanian, European and American. I love the spice and tang of the local cuisine. The architecture along the waterfront and main streets is also a blend of Caribbean, Latin and European styles, all painted in bright colors. Located just nine degrees north of the equator, Bocas is out of the hurricane zone and the weather is what I call equatorial; Hot and sunny most of the time except when it’s hot and rainy. Humidity also stays near a hundred percent, so we swim or snorkel off the back of the boat every day.

Red Frog Beach, Isla Bastimento

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Yacht Boat Plans | A better post for a new month!

Yacht Boat Plans

The below was a crummy post for the first of June!  Heres to a better start to the first month of summer:

This is a Luna moth I found at a gas station fluttering uselessly against the lights.  I jumped out of the car and took off my shirt and chased it around the station until I caught it and brought it home (much to the amusement of my wife).  A beautiful specimen of a Giant Silk Moth (approx. 6" wingspan).  This one is a male, you can tell because it has well developed antennae.  It lives for about a week and does not eat, it lives only to mate.  I found a Polyphemus last year on Nantucket, but lost the pictures... boo.  But this is beautiful, my first one.  Another good way to start the summer! 

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Small Boat Plans And Kits | Ringvaart Regatta 2015 Time for a little lie down

Small Boat Plans And Kits

What with sofas for marshals; floating bananas; llamas; a 25km row to the start; mid-race chips; a stork on a stick; loads of students who could hardly row; but then loads more students who excelled at bilingual organisation, the 100km Ringvaart Regatta is probably the wackiest rowing event Ive ever taken part in.

Though I have to say it was an unusual choice for a first sculling race for the only other British entry in the event, "Jim the Sculler".

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Event: The Ringvaart Regatta
Where: The Netherlands
Distance: 100km
Time: 11 hours, 10 mins and 44 seconds (excluding chip-eating time)
Boat type: Numerous – fine boats from VIIIs to singles, touring coxed quads and doubles (coxed and coxless), and dont forget the "single wherry" – a very large wooden coxed single. We used a touring coxed double, designated C2* in Dutch nomenclature (they use * instead of x+)
Number of crews in the event: 144
When: The first Wednesday after Ascension Day (canals are quieter midweek)
Event Organiser: OOC&C Ringvaart Regatta

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We all know that the Dutch do canals, but on this trip, when we got truly up close and personal with them, we learned a but about quite how ingenious they really are with them, and how they use them for things that those of us who hail from "above sea level countries" would have thought you needed dry land for. 

What is the Ringvaart? 
You know how I just said the Dutch are clever with canals? Well, that stops short at the engineering aspect of them. Branding, they dont do. "Ringvaart" means "ring canal", and that is what it is. It went like this (in the 19th Century):

1. Dig a canal round a lake.
2. Pile the earth youve dug out of the trench on the banks of it to make them higher than the lake.
3. Pump the water out of the lake into the canal (so it eventually flows away to the sea, in a highly leisurely way, stopping for some weekend breaks en route).
4. Build Schiphol Airport on the resulting land (OK, this was a bit later).
5. Devise rowing race round said canal.

All perfectly simple and straightforward. And about 70km long. So to make the rowing race into a rounder number, a few years back, an extra straight bit was stuck on the bottom, resulting in a route shaped, as our crew tended to describe it, as a candyfloss on a stick. We started at the top of the stick, rowed round the candyfloss, and then down the stick.

Race warm-up is very important
We know this – were experienced rowers. So, nobody batted an eyelid when my Dutch buddies at the lovely DDS club in Delft (just 2km from the bottom of the stick), from where we rented a boat, explained that their usual practice is to row up to the start the day before. A distance of about 25k. 

Well, none of us had ever been in a touring coxed double before, so we needed to find out how it worked. En route, we admired the traditional cantilevered bridges; gave marks out of 10 to the various bridgekeeper huts on them; and nearly got splatted into a large post as a MASSIVE barge came past with the weirdest kind of sucking wake that picked us up and chucked us sideways.

Whilst doing this (and just a reminder that we were going in the opposite direction to the one wed be racing in the following day), we couldnt help noticing the screaming tailwind. I rapidly devised a swapping strategy that should avoid me being in the stroke seat whilst battling back against the wind the next day, although I might as well have given this to some mice to look after  for all the good it did in the end.

Totally unrowable?
When race day dawned,  we were already up and eating porridge, having been allocated a start time of 6.20am. 

To say it was somewhat breezy at the boating area would be a British understatement. As for the "Kaag" lake we would have to cross about 2km after the start, our new friend Sculler Jim pronounced it "totally unrowable". Having only had a relatively limited number of outings since hed bought his first sculling boat 7 months before, hed decided that he wouldnt ever be racing on rough water, and so had never gone out in any. He looked somewhat concerned.

Rough water. (Smooth sculling.)

Anyway, off he set, and we briefly amused ourselves by wondering how many strokes it would take before the  two crews who had put their race numbers on their fronts realised that this wasnt such a good idea, before heading out after him. 

The start itself was the epitome of liberalism and the relaxed Dutch lifestyle: no red-faced umpire screaming "Crew 13, GO!" here, but a polite young man calling out "You may start when you want" (and yes, that was in perfect English, obvs).

Anyway, back to the plot. That lake was rough. Very rough. We were truly impressed at the scullers who were surviving it. But we were also ever so smug with our larger hull that also cut through the waves brilliantly. The corrugated plastic rigger covers werent actually necessary as hardly a drop touched them. We were complete converts to the touring coxed double as a boat type.

We caught up with Sculler Jim at the far side of the Kaag, where he and several other single scullers were stopping to bail out. By now he looked downright traumatised: all he could say was "My bananas are floating in my footwell!" It was clearly not an issue hed had to deal with in the various ironman triathlons hed completed.

We left him to it, and paddled on up the canals, still enjoying the screaming tailwind, but in flatter water.

"Liggen".

Two little words you just dont need when rowing in the UK
Many of the bridges over canals are low. Quite a lot of them are narrow. And to deal with these you need 2 techniques which Id learned from the natives on a previous Dutch rowing trip. For the low ones, you need to "liggen", which means lie back flat: an extremely pleasant way of stretching your back out in the later stages of a long race, actually.

And for the narrow ones, the only approach is to "slippen", which means swing your blades round so theyre parallel with the boat. Apologies I havent included a photo of this here, but as you can imagine, if a bridge is narrow enough to slippen, it requires fairly accurate steering too, and this isnt quite the moment to get the camera out.

More showboat than showroom?

Only in Holland
Although the Netherlands is quite a large country by area, the vast majority of the population live in the area round Amsterdam, where we were, so land, in particular dry land, is at a premium. But with mile after mile of canals, moorings are cheap as chips (not the chips that were mentioned in the introduction – Ill get on to those later). So, if your business is a small, second hand car dealership, it does really make perfect sense to park your vehicles on a barge on the canal.

And while were on the subject of national differences, we also rather liked the thatched windmills: not just the roof, you understand, but full-body thatch eight up the walls. Presumably its rather good insulation. It gives em a rather lovely velvety look.

Less of this cultural stuff, back to the rowing
There were various stops along the route where crews could choose to take a "comfort break", and get snacks (such as less soggy bananas) from the following cyclist that every crew was meant to have. 

With so much space in our boat, our larder was pretty well stocked, and our cyclist was getting a bit bored, so it was jolly good having Jim around who welcomed a helping hand. 

Just before the 40km stop, we were impressed to realise that Jim had caught up with us, but we managed to get away again, as wed decide not to stop at that one, whilst he did.

Not long after this, we turned round the top of the "candyfloss", and one crew member uttered the potentially fatal words "Is it me or has the wind dropped?". Fate clearly wasnt interested in being tempted that day, as the afternoon got calmer and calmer, and the sun even came out. 

By this time, we were thoroughly enjoying ourselves, eating jelly babies, and saying "Oo look a windmill, quite frequently." A slight blip in our happiness was being overtaken by my Dutch friend Linda (who isnt much bigger than me) in a single scull. Respect. We later learned that shed done the whole 100km without any stops at all. Even more respect. And finished 28th overall, the 6th sculler (that includes men). Unprecedented amounts of respect. 

Not a good idea.

Soon, the church spire and large windmill of Leischendam hove into view, 88km into the race.  

Theres a lock here, which wouldnt be practical to go through, so they stop the clock, hoards of students lift your boat out, and carry it round the lock, and plop it on the other side till youre read to start again. Youre allegedly allowed up to 45 mins break (though we got a bit distracted – and this is where the nice salty chips with mayonnaise came in – and took a few minutes longer but werent penalised for it). The students were indeed lovely, and cheery, but possibly didnt have much experience of touring boats (which were in the minority in the event), and despite our suggestions that this really wasnt a good idea, insisted on throwing our boat to over heads when they lifted it out. To give them credit, they didnt drop it, but phrases like "ridiculously heavy" were bandied about.

"Team GB."

Refuelled, and with just 12km to go, off we set again, and entered "emptying the tank" mode. Coming into Delft, we noticed a pretty double gatehouse, which Vermeer apparently famously painted, but were a lot better at rowing than we are at art appreciation, so didnt really savour the moment, particularly as we were more interested in the student with the megaphone announcing 700m to go.

One last sprint, and we were there! With excellent timing, Sculler Jim (who had faffed around at Leischendam a lot less than we had) was there to meet us, which just topped off a top event.

Verdict: Highly recommended!

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