Boat Plans Pdf | Tour du Leman 2008 The one that got away

Boat Plans Pdf

When I first took part in the 160km, non-stop Tour du Léman à lAviron around Lake Geneva, I was thrilled to have completed what I felt at the time was a very daunting challenge, and was quite clear that there was no need ever to do it again. 

But some months later, the other woman from that mixed crew and I decided that we SHOULD do it again. And actually, make it harder this time by doing it in an all-womens crew.

Having pulled together a carefully chosen quintet of ladies who can "shut up and row", we set off for what we thought was going to be a tough row. In fact, it turned out not to be about rowing that year, but about the pumps. Of which  we only had one, and it was rather inadequate.

Ladies who row
At this point I should, perhaps, mention that the formation of the crew wasnt quite as easy as Ive made it sound. Youd be amazed at how many, hard-training/racing rowers DONT think that a 16 hour row round a lake is a good idea. But having got stuck at four out of the necessary five, I got chatting to a woman at the City of Sheffield Rowing Club training camp, which I was attending, mostly for social reasons, at the invitation of friends from there. After talking to her for about 5 minutes by the landing stages, I somehow felt that she was a likely candidate. "Hey, I dont suppose youd like to row round 160km round Lake Geneva at the end of September, would you?", I asked, before we were hurried into our single sculls by the coach, and sent off for the session. 

As I pulled back into the landing stage an hour or so later, she hopped out of her boat, and came over. "Put me down for that race. Ive already booked that week off work and was looking for something to do." Shes been my best expedition rowing friend ever since.

For Yorkshire, chocolate and the flag

The flag.

All five of us had strong Yorkshire connections: four were past or present members of York City RC, and the fifth was born elsewhere in Gods own county. And whilst I never got used to drinking tea THAT strong, its the kind of place you feel an attachment to, even if you only lived there are a temporary migrant from the South.

For further bonding of our otherwise dispersed team, I made a crew flag that featured the colours of the four rowing clubs that the five of us belonged to at the time. It was to become our rallying cry.

Getting roughed up
Although the weather was idyllic the day before as we were preparing the boat, the forecast was for a windy race day, and as soon as we rowed out of the organising clubs harbour, we knew we were in trouble. Still, 22 crews set off on the usual 1km charge across the lake, before turning to head out past the UN building and along the Swiss shore.

It was tough going. Although wed taped up our riggers, waves kept breaking over the bows, rapidly drenching the woman rowing there, and actually they were breaking high enough that they often just landed straight in the boat. I was soon working our hand pump whilst also trying to steer (which needed to be done actively as the waves were pushing us around).

Our normal stopping schedule would have had the first swap after 30 mins, but we were aware that this was no time to stop and clamber up and down the boat, so the first combo kept going, although with increasingly frequent pauses to bail out. At some point the hose fell off the end of the pump, but the amount of water the pump was shooting out, meant it was easy to aim over the side. That wasnt the problem. The capacity of the pump was, though: and it wasnt enough.

We discovered later that all of us were independently thinking, "If we get through this rough bit, even if the water flattens out, were all so wet were going to get hypothermia", and as five basically lightweights, we were all right. However, it was still a big "if"...

Bling
At this point, Ill leave us pumping and paddling ineffectually and explain a small aside.

Keen to encourage the participation of more all-women crews, the organisers had managed to secure sponsorship from a local jeweler (this being Switzerland, after all) in the form of five Boucheron watches. Nice. These would go to the winning womens crew.

So, as we were struggling along, quite close to the only other womens crew in the event, one of our crew did raise the point that if neither crew was going to finish, the watches would go to the one that got furthest, and so we should make sure we always paused ahead of them.

Which was a fine plan, but like so many brilliant strategies, its the implementation where things often go wrong. And the last time we stopped to bail, when we just HAD to, we were behind the others. At this point, the straw that broke the camels back, or more accurately, the wave that swamped the yolette, came over the side, and it was all over. As pre-planned, we pulled our feet out, the boat rolled over (but stayed floating), and we all ensured we stayed holding on to the boat with one hand until the other hand was holding the ladder of one of the two motor cruisers that were in attendance.

The race organisers always assign one cruiser per crew to act as a safety boat. However, as 11 crews had already swamped or run for he safety of the bank, one who no longer had a crew had chosen, for some reason, to follow the girls in the wet t-shirts. 

This was helpful, though it did lead to some angst as two of us got onto one cruiser, and three onto the other, and I was only 99% certain Id seen all three of the others get onto the other boat.

The French can be sticklers for accuracy
As we climbed aboard, I saw my drybag, containing clothes, and someones iPod, blow away across the surface of the lake, floating, because it contained quite a lot of air. "Mes vêtements sèches", I cried, in my best schoolgirl French. The cruiser driver replied "Non, vos vêtements secs", before retrieving the bag with a boat hook. Honestly, what a time for a grammar lesson!

Having been surprised at how warm the lake felt when we were swimming in it, as soon as we got into the cruisers cabin, we started shivvering like mad – it must have been the adrenaline that kept us going while it had to. We divvied up what dry clothes we had, and supplemented these with some towels lent by the two vast French gents driving the boat.

So, after a mere 1 hr and 20 minutes of "rowing", and a surprisingly long run in a cruiser back across the lake, we found ourselves once again at the Société Nautique de Genève, about 14 hours earlier than wed intended. We werent even tired!

We went back to the dormitory, we showed, we got dressed, and it was till only about 11.30am. So we wandered sadly into town, stopping for some photos by the famous Jet dEau, but not feeling very jolly. At this point, a thought suddenly struck me, "The flag!", I wailed. We had no idea what would be rescued from the capsized boat, although we had tied all of the important stuff on.

We wandered on, unexpected tourists. And apparently not very good ones either, as we finished up in a run-down red light district. A little later we did get to a rather better park, and played a few moves on a giant chess board, but we werent really in the mood, and soon headed back to the Club where we were delighted to find that our camera, GPS and most importantly the flag, had been rescued from their little swim. Good for you Pentax and Garmin, is all Ill say: when you say watertight to a depth of 50m, you mean it!

Giant chess is no substitute for a good rowing challenge.

In the end, only five of the 22 starters got round. They were all German. And were equipped with very efficient pumps.

And yes, the other womens crew got the Boucheron watches. Because they were about 25m ahead of us, and went down about 3 minutes later.

So we were a crew with unfinished business. But would we all be able to come back again? In one case, this trip was a crew members holiday budget for the year, so to allocate all that two years running was a big ask... Find out whether we made it!

[Apologies for the lack of pictures in this report: as you now know, we were a bit busy to stop and take any.]


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Boat Plans Aluminium Australia | The Seven Wonders of the Dutch rowing World

Boat Plans Aluminium Australia

The Netherlands is a short flight from the southern UK and their weather is similar to ours, but their rowing clubs are practically on a different planet.

Last weekend, I went on an informal 29km rowing tour there with Dutch friends, followed by a conference on touring rowing (organised by Toer!) the next day in Amsterdam, and was bowled over by what I found.

Wonder Number 1. Soft cushions!
We were the guests of a member of Baarn watersports club on the river Eem, south-east of Amsterdam. As you often find on the continent, there was a special cushion for the coxing seat of our touring coxed quad. So far so nicely organised.

But this club had taken the concept to a new level with monogramed embroidery: you cant quite see it in this photo, but the orange line of characters on the right are the Club name, and the small group in the top left are the boat name (so you dont accidentally take the wrong cushion for your boat – perish the thought).

Its kinda, "If Charles Tyrwhitt did boat cushions..."

Wonder Number 2: Rowing into a gallery
Anyway, we set off, and had a pleasant row past many fields to  the small town of Amersfoort, which mixes well-kept old buildings, with the most modern of modern architecture, and a great deal of "art" scattered all over the place.

This must be "art".
Not a clue what else it could be...

There was even a chandelier under the railway bridge. The perfect lighting if you were having a floating dinner party, I guess. Though possibly only for people using sign language, given the rumble of trains overhead.

Wonder number 3: The longest boathouse

Paddling back out of town, we stopped off at Hemus rowing clubs brand new home, which is, without doubt, the most spacious boathouse Ive ever seen (with the possible exception of Northeastern in Boston). 

Boats, almost as far as the eye can see.
Note also (OK, with a magnifying glass) the standard arrangement of a touring boat on the floor at the bottom of every rack, with fine boats above.
That, people, is how many touring boats the average Dutch club has. Wow OH wow.

The full length boat bays had no fewer then FOUR racks of boats along them (OK, not all VIIIs, but there were some), with copious spacing above each boat. You know how clothes are displayed in the windows of smart boutiques: a choice piece, carefully arranged on its own against complimentary surrounding. And you know how your rowing kit is stuffed into a big bag. Well, there you have Hemus rowing club compared with your average boathouse: a sort of zen of boat racking. You can just feel the calm, cant you?

As you might expect, there was also a massive bike park and a complete lack of car park, and to my utter astonishment, a sedum roof. Not sure what else I can say about that, other than !. And !!

But then the next day, I found another sedum roof at RIC in Amsterdam (I did take a photo, but once youve seen one picture of a boathouse with a sedum roof, youve seen em all) so, based on a sample size of three, I concluded that around 67% of Dutch boathouses have sedum roofs. I wonder if there are any in the UK? 

Wonder Number 5: No soggy towels, thanks, were Dutch!
Amidst such shiny new-ness, I was reassured to see that the club had clearly brought one thing from their previous shed: the obligatory 1950s mangle that I have observed in almost all Dutch rowing clubs, for wringing out the boat-wiping towels (where do they GET them from?).

Incidentally, when I say "almost all" clubs have these, the club back in Baarn where we started didnt have a mangle but had hurtled recklessly into the 21st century and had a dedicated boat-towel washing machine. Shocking stuff.

Wonder Number 6: What goes on Tour...

What goes on tour are Dutch rowers apparently. Big time. All the clubs I visited had a Tour Calendar on their club noticeboard, listing at least 12 events for the season, and I discovered that every club has a Touring Committee. A permanent group dedicated to organising tours (plural). Perhaps I should emigrate?

Wonder Number 7: Expressing rowing through the medium of...

When youve rowed for as long as I have, youve generally seen it all in terms of rowing lifestyle accessories: paintings, mugs, boxer shorts, ornaments, you know the kind of thing. But at RIC I found some novel ways of bringing rowing indoors. First, perfectly supporting Dutch stereotypes about painted tiles, the youth section had produced a set of decorated rowing tiles in the clubs orange and black colours:

The river was mapped on one of the bars coffee tables in inlaid marquetry (you cant see it in the photo blow, but bridges and locks were marked):

And finally, a highly creative member had expressed a tour route in the medium of tapestry:

Thats it for wonders, but like the sprinkles on your cupcake, heres a final fascinating fact pertaining to the social history of rowing. British rowers are well aware that  rowing use to have an obsession with "amateur" status, and the fact that (back in the day) it might only be done by "gentlemen". This led to the founding of clubs like Thames Tradesmen Rowing Club, whose members were barred from joining some of the amateur" clubs because their work involved a physical element. Rowing clubs in Amsterdam, however, followed different social divisions, with RIC having its origins as the Catholic rowing club (I gather that sectarian divisions ran as deep as British class divisions, till even more recently, not just with separate Catholic and Protestant schools but also hospitals, political parties and even TV channels). Apparently another club had originally been Jewish.

Photos: Martin Paasman and Helena Smalman-Smith.

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Dinghy Boat Plans | Tour du Leman 2009 Never again

Dinghy Boat Plans

The story so far: in 2006, I amazed myself by completing the Tour du Léman à lAviron in a mixed crew. In 2008, I set out to do the race "the hard way" without those big-engined blokes in an all-womens crew. Unfortunately, the weather got the better of us and we "swamped" after an hour and 20 minutes of battling through breaking waves.

Disliking unfinished business, the five of us returned to Geneva the next year, more practised, equipped with an electric pump, and with an updated flag.

Pump action
Getting an adequate pump was top of our "what to do differently next year" after our unplanned swim in Lake geneva in 2008. Not having a clue about what we needed or where to get it, I remembered that the German crew which had been prepping their boat next to ours in 2008 had been installing a rather impressive electrical pump system. Fortunately, I had taken some photos of us by our boat at this point, which had the Germans in the background, and with teutonic efficiency, the name of their club was on the side of their boat. Thanks to the wonder of the internet and my dodgy schoolgirl German, within 24 hours, I was in email contact with one of that crew, who spoke impeccable English, and explained the details of their pumping system.

Unfortunately, as this relied on using a small motor-cycle battery for power, we were stumped because you simply cant take those on planes. Further research then revealed that all water pumps assume that you are in a boat that has a motor to power it. And even the 2 tall girls in our crew didnt have the relevant voltage output. In the end, I found that there is just one type of pump which runs on D batteries – and swiftly bought one.

No, not again?
The weather was distinctly murky when we set off, and as we headed out along the Swiss shore, the water was worryingly choppy. Wed built up the bows of the boat as much as possible with plastic sheeting, bits of wood and a lot of gaffer tape, as well as taping over our riggers with a marvelous product Id discovered whilst a friend was moving house – its like sticky tape, but about 2ft wide, and is used for putting over stair carpet so removal men dont mess it up whilst carrying stuff up and down stairs in dirty shoes. 

After a couple of worrying hours, hoping the waves didnt get any worse, we were hugely relieved when the water flattened out so that we could revert to rowing square blade, which almost totally eliminates issues with blisters or painful wrists. And some time mid afternoon the sun also appeared for a while, which was particularly welcome, as it shone from behind us, for easing my increasingly painful back.

Why, thank you, sirs!
Before the race, wed been contacted by a mens crew from Swansea University Boat Club who were competing in it for the first time, seeking tips. Like many university rowers, they were not scullers, and so had elected to do he trace as a coxed four instead of as a coxed quad. Which was a level of added challenge that even multi-veterans of the event wouldnt contemplate.

Paddling square blade in perfect conditions.

The had had some red all-in-ones with large black spots on made specially for the event. We never found out why they wanted to look like ladybirds, but it was a fun look nevertheless, and why not.

Despite being big strong boys, at least partly because they were rowing sweep,  
we found that we were a similar speed to them, and with almost all crews using the "swap the cox every 30 mins" strategy, we often found ourselves pausing near them for the undignified scramble up and down the boat. At one swap, somewhere near Montreux, we were so close that they called across "Ladies, we dont want to give you big heads, but we think your sculling is beautiful!". Big smiles all round i our crew! And here is a simple but important thing about compliments: when youre under physical pressure, theyre incredibly powerful. Honestly, that nice little comment kept us buoyed up for ages. Thanks, guys!

Talking to these men after the event, it turned out that theyd been using quite a complex strategy which meant that they not only swapped the cox every half hour, but also changed the whole crew round so that each man swapped sides (another issue with doing long-distance events sweep not sculling) and the "burden" of stroking was shared equally. You can see the logic in it, but it did make the changes time-consuming, particularly as one ember of their crew was about 67" whilst the others were normal-sized, and so there must have been quite a lot of adjusting feet each time everyone moved round.

We took a totally different approach. We arranged the crew in height order, with the tallest in the stern and the shortest (thats me) in the bows. Although "middle 3" rowed in 2 different positions, depending on who was coxing, they were therefore sharing a seat with someone who was reasonably close to them in leg length, and so we didnt have to adjust stretchers at all. Of course, this did mean that the tallest girl stroked 80% of the race, but shes a country vet, hard as nails, and actually thrived in leading us all on from  the front. The Welsh guys were totally in awe of this concept.

We were being followed
As always, the race organisers at Société Nautique de Genève allocate a motor boat to follow each rowing crew in this event, to provide safety cover. The cruisers are all privately owned, and belong to the cruiser section of this multi-watersport club, but we had always thought that traipsing up to the top of the lake and back for 16 hours was pretty darn kind of them. But we later came to understand that they actually quite enjoyed it.

We particularly liked our support crew this year. At the start of the race, when all the rowing boats are quite close together, all the cruisers stood off, traveling up the middle of the lake, so they didnt wash us down. But a few hours in, when there was more space, they gently approached us at one of our swap pauses, and shouted out "Hello ladies, we are here for you!"

As darkness fell, they continued to keep nicely out of the way, but when we stopped to swap, and they saw the lights on our boat stop moving, they did approach a couple of times,  turn their powerful searchlight on us, and ask "Are you OK?", to which we replied with cheerful waves. The only slight snag with this was that, on swapping into the coxing seat after 2 hours rowing, the cox often needed to relive herself (using a receptacle of which no more will be said), and whilst dropping ones shorts in front of ones friend was a necessary evil, it didnt mean one was entirely comfortable having ones are bottom illuminated. However, they fairly quickly understood the situation, and stopped using the searchlight.

After the race, we sent them a card to thank them for being a great support boat, and some months later they sent the above photo, with several others which finally revealed that following rowers round the lake was actually a jolly good excuse for a cruise. (Note that the French word for "safety" is "securité", hence the caption. It wasnt that we were at risk of being kidnapped...)

Through the marks and round the bend
One of the rules of the race states that all crews have to get past a specific point at the top of the lake in 9 hours, or they will be asked to retire. As wed only just got to that point within the cutoff in our mixed crew in 2006, we were quite concerned that we might not make it in our womens crew, and be forced to stop, even if we were going well. We talked to the organisers about this, and one of them (probably speaking off the record), winked at us and said "Dont worry, for you we will stop the clock." You can see why I think this is just the nicest event ever.

Heading away from Le Bouveret, the 9 hour cutoff point.

As it turned out, we neednt have worried. We had with us a list of the times wed taken to each way point round the course in our mixed crew, and to our surprise, soon found that we were actually beating these each time. We concluded that although the blokes had provided good power, they were also heavy when coxing and at least some of them had caused excessive faffing at change points.

Another problem wed had that year was that our GPS had stopped working and without it we were unable to find the waypoint at Sciez in the dark. Equipped with a new GPS this year, w wondered why wed ever had a problem, and rounded this point exactly in parallel with the Welsh ladybird men. Im sure the timekeepers there must have thought some French equivalent of "I dunno, you stand here for hours and suddenly 2 crews turn up at once".

Never again
The final 3 hours 15 minutes from Sciez to the finish were hard. My back was a wall of pain, and ensuring that you avoid unlit yachts in the dark when coxing is quite stressful. Eventually, though, we reached the stretch of dual carriageway that runs past the club, and which has very obvious street lights along it. Id remember this but taking ages in 2006, but this time it whizzed past (its actually only about 3km), and after a little bit of shouting on the finish line "Somme nous finis?", "Yes, you have finished!" we were finally the first British womens crew to row round Lake Geneva.

Stéphane, the lovely chief race organiser, was at the landing stage to pull us into the landing stage, at which point I said, somewhat in the manner of Steve Redgraves "If you ever see me in a boat again you have my permission to shoot me" utterance after winning 2- at the 1996 Olympics (and we all know what happened after that), "Dont ever accept an entry from me for this race again, that was SO painful." Of course, he just smiled, and said "You will be back." 

And, of course, he was right.

The 2008 flag had to be updated for 2009 because one
 crew member had changed clubs,
hence the addition of the Rob Roy dark red fringe.

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Boat Plans Bartender | Tour du Leman 2013 Like how you DREAM sculling to be

Boat Plans Bartender

The problem with my fifth experience of the 160km Tour du Léman a lAviron, round Lake Geneva, was that everything was so perfect, theres a serious risk that all future participations can only be a disappointment: the weather was idyllic; our safety boat driver kept us entertained in ways no safety boat had ever tried before; and we even found a solution to one of our major food issues.

Mind you, we did struggle a bit with a wonky rudder, and a trapped nerve in my neck meant that I found out my left arm didnt work properly during the race when the rate went above 24, but it would be boring if it were simple...

Food for thought... and for fuel
Although not all of my crew-mates are always in agreement with me on this, I rather enjoy the fact that the 40CHF entry fee includes free accommodation for three nights in a nuclear bunker "dormitory" just up the hill in Cologny, from the organising club, the Société Nautique de Genève. 

However, one challenge with this arrangement is that its self-catering. The German contingents, who generally arrive in their clubs minibus (and theres another distinction  – most British rowing clubs dont even have a club minibus), unpack impressive spreads from their cool-boxes including interesting-looking breads (I imagine theyve carefully tested quite how high-fibre a meal is advisable before sitting in a rowing boat for 15 hours) washed down with crates of beer and cartons of orange-juice.

For our first few occasions at this event, we tried eating out, but this proved to be expensive, and also it took too long by the time wed walked into town (lacking a club minibus) and back. And then there was the question of how to get a decent breakfast early in the morning on race day before the bakery round the corner opened.

Rowing is a fuel-demanding activity.

This year, we got it right. Helped by the fact that one crew member had accrued a lot of air miles from business travel and so could fly British Airways, with its generous luggage allowance, as opposed to that available on the budget airline the rest of us used, a crew saucepan and kettle were packed, and we each brought our own plate, mug and cutlery. The dinner solution involved a packet of pasta (gluten-free for one crew member) and each girl bringing a Dolmio tub sauce of her choice. Meanwhile we were thrilled to find that you can now get "porridge pots" that already contain dried golden syrup (no, I have no idea how your dry golden syrup either), and come in gluten-free as well as gluten-full varieties for Little Miss Difficult Guts, which miraculously comes to life with boiling water. 

Weather warning
The default start time for this event is 9am, but wed always felt that this was a bit of a waste of good daylight rowing time (given that event the fastest crews take around 12 hours and so you are bound to finish in the dark), so we were delighted when it was announced the day before that the start would be brought forward to 8am. The reason why, was less good news, though.

The organisers always work closely with a local weather forecaster, whose gloomy prediction was that there would be a nasty storm at the top of the lake around 5pm. Which is roughly when the slower crews like us (we were the only womens crew this year) would be getting there. We felt that their official advice on how to deal with this situation – "row as fast as you can to get past there as soon as possible and then stick close to the shore if the storm does break" – wasnt particularly cunning, but it wasnt like we could actually think of a better one ourselves.

Jockeying for position at the first turn.
(This photo is too small to show the big grin on my face!)

Who coxes when?
The start of the race was the usual frenzied 1km sprint across the lake before turning through 90 degrees round a buoy to head out along the northern, Swiss shore of Lac Léman. As usual, we started off with me in the coxing seat because, although everyone takes equal turns coxing ad sculling in this event, Im a cox who sculls, whilst the others are rowers who cox, and so this was not only our fastest combination, but I was the one who positively enjoyed steering through the melee.

We were quite pleased to reach that point in 5th place overall, although inevitably various mens crews then powered past us as we settled into a sustainable rating.

SSSHH
Our flag this year read "SSHHH" which are the first letters of our names. Rather appropriate, we thought, for an event where the primary selection criterion is the ability to "shut up and row" which, I learned from the website of a French womens ocean rowing crew called, very neatly, "Rames Dames", translates exactly as "tais-toi et rame".

Despite being reinforced with a coat-hanger, the flag had a tendency to swing round to bowside which, as it happened the boat did too. We never quite worked out why, and it stopped doing it after a few hours, but it did make navigation a little difficult, especially if the cox was busy getting a sandwich out, retaping her hands, or carrying out other personal activities of the type that these blogs dont go into, remember?

Hey Monsieur Music Man
As I mentioned in my account of the 2009 race every crew has a motor cruiser assigned to it as its safety boat, although their attentiveness and patience with shouted exchanges in school girl French has varied over the years. And whilst our 2009 safety crew were lovely, this years boat took their duties to a whole new level. Talking to them afterwards, it turned out the boat was skippered by the Head of Safety for the whole event, and this was the last year he was in charge, so he seemed to want to go out on a high, which he certainly achieved. 

The first hint that this wasnt just another cruiser patiently following us at a polite distance came at some point in the early afternoon when we were plodding away, putting in the strokes, Suddenly, the National Anthem came blasting out across the lake! We all burst out laughing, and the jolly feeling was a real help.

Perfect sculling conditions.

Later, towards the top of the lake, we were enjoying sculling along (at square blade, of course) on the most perfect flat water in "baby bears porridge (pot)" sunshine (not too hot, not too cold, but just right), and I had just commented to the girl in front that "this is how you DREAM sculling to be like" when a small motorboat headed out from the shore at high speed, throwing up a huge wash, and on a path that was clearly going  to intercept us. Immediately, Superstar Safety Boat hunted him down and successfully headed him off. Such attentiveness to our sculling pleasure!

As darkness fell, he found yet more ways to help the long kilometers just fly by, but more of that shortly.

Tightly round the island at Villeneuve.

Round the bend
The race organisers provide GPS co-ordinates of the various markers that all crews have to pass round during the race. This ensures, amongst other things, that we all really do go ROUND the lake, and dont just nip up the middle and go straight back. The event is the Tour du Léman, after all. 

But given that this is Switzerland, the homeland of accuracy, weve always been slightly bemused that the GPS co-ordinates given for the one waypoint which is actually a small island (and therefore is fixed from year to year, unlike the buoys which can move) are always marked as "approx" and, from past experience were more like "inacc" or even just plain "wrong". So, this year, making use of the marvels of modern technology, Id take the actual position of the little wooded island at Villeneuve from Google Earth, and was delighted to find that it was spot on.

Having passed Villeneuve at 5.45pm, there was no sign at all of the forecast storm, but as we reached the next point, Le Bouveret, where we saw one crew "abandoning" (wed noticed that they were a mature crew who appeared to be being coxed by a teenage girl who we think was the daughter of one of the rowers – and we later learned that she was shivering with a temperature by this point, so they sensibly pulled out), drops of rain started to fall.

The best conditions ever.

Was our blissful row up to this point about to descend to the horrors wed experienced in 2012?

To our immense relief, no. Those few drops were all we got, and the rest of the evening remained pleasant. Whoever was coxing did put on the communal coxing coat whilst they werent rowing, but the rest of us finished the race in shorts and t-shirts. Just wonderful.

On and on and on
In due course we passed Evian, where the brightly lit casino gives you something to look at for 10 minutes or so, after which darkness fell completely. However, as we passed each little town, we were amazed that people appeared on jetties shouting positive (albeit slightly unidentified) things, which we found most energising. We couldnt work out at the time quite how all these lovely people knew we would be passing, especially as the field was quite spread out by now, though we later learned that the amazing organisers had contacted various watersports clubs round the lake about the event, and as every boat was carrying a tracker, they were watching to see when each crew would pass.

Anyway, we were loving the attention and having a great time, when Super Safety Boat added the icing to the cake by getting his speakers out again and playing us some bursts of the Spice Girls, Abba, and anything else to do with powerful women and water that he could find clips of on YouTube.

Later, having exhausted his store of musical puns, he played some more extended chunks of booming rock, which was great for us, but we always wondered if the organising club received complaints later from residents of quiet lakeside villas who had their repose disturbed so uncharacteristically at 11pm.

We gave top marks to the timing team at Sciez who whooped and hollered as we swung round that buoy (although the timing teams at other points had been on particularly good form this year too).

Helpful young men.

Help when you need it most

And whilst were on the subject of the many lovely volunteers at this event, an absolutely top team is the bunch of club juniors, mostly boys, who are tasked with helping competing crew get their boats onto the water before the race and, more critically, off the water after. 

Managed by the wonderful, tri-lingual Norina, a bunch of young men is just what you need after 15 hours rowing!

However, one of these young lads finished up doing rather more than hed signed up for: a local crew arrived for the race with the news that a crew member had been taken ill overnight and was unable to row. Im not sure how much "volunteering" was involved, or whether he was simply handed a pair of shorts and told to get on with it, but one of the boat boys was rapidly "recruited" to take his place, and successfully rowed the lake. An impressive feat psychologically as well as physically. Respect, young sir.

"Wow, look at that amazing, magical fairy standing on
your hand! Its a special one that can only be
seen by people who have rowed round Lac Léman!"

Magic

As always, the organisers do a great job of making an occasion out of each crews successful completion of the tour: each one is presented with a bottle of champagne and theres an official photograph, no matter how late is is. The photo on the left was snapped by the official photographer, with the wonderful Stéphane, Chairman of the Organising Committee, poised to present us with our champagne. I cant remember what we were actually discussing, and it was probably our stroke girls impressive lack of blisters, but its a shot which just demanded a caption competition...

Detail, detail, detail
In case you havent noticed, I love this event for the size of its challenge but also for the lovely people who organise it and help out in so many different ways, from collecting us at the airport armed with a sign on a blade, to the weather forecast, the timers, the safety team, the boat boys, the chef who produces lasagne late into the night for the crews as they get in (and a totally separate dish for Miss Gluten-Intolerant) and above all to whoever laid the trophies out for the prize giving with a nautical theme. 

Every competitor gets a trophy,

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Boden Boat Plans Australia | The Sulkava Rowing Race 15 have fun in Finland

Boden Boat Plans Australia

A 60km rowing race, in a historic style of wooden boat, through beautiful countryside, in the height of summer. On reflection, our hastily-thought-up team name, "Whats Not to Like?", said it all.

And to make it totally irresistible, the boats are coxed 14s (and no, the 1 is NOT a typo – I dont mean coxed 4), with bowside and strokeside sitting  NEXT to each other. I mean, really, whats not to like?!

Although actually, there WAS something that was definitely not to like about some of the boats...

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Event: The Sulkava Rowing Race
Where: Sulkava, Finland, about 300km NE of Helsinki
Distance: 60km
Time: 5 hours, 9 seconds (oh, how annoyed we were!)
Boat type: Churchboats
Number of crews in the event: 50 in our race; 316 overall
Event Organiser: http://www.suursoudut.fi/en/

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You know the concept of the hub airport? Which people fly to in smallish planes from small places, then get into a massive Boeing 747 at the hub, fly fast and cheaply over a long distance to another hub? 

Well, churchboats are like Finnish predecessors of the jumbo jets. To get to church each Sunday in rural areas and, lets face it, practically all of Finland is very rural, the residents of isolated farms (not sure that there was another kind) hopped into their dinghies and rowed to wherever the nearest churchboat was based, where they transferred to that, and then rowed fast and efficiently across the big lake to somewhere that was large enough to boast a church. And to make the journey back even quicker, the various chuchboats had a race across the first bit of lake.

There are some wonderful videos from 1938 at the bottom of this blog going into this tradition in more detail if youre interested.

But back to the modern event.

Seating arrangements 
The "bow side and stroke side next to each other" thing sounded fine, till we tried it in practice, when we discovered that the people in the stroke and bow pairs, where the boat is narrowest, couldnt avoid clashing elbows.

However, we did learn about a new piece of rowing "equipment" which none of us had ever used before – a special sleeve, that was on sale, for putting over your blade handle if you wanted to make it fatter to fit the size of your hands better. Our bowside stroke (on the right in this picture) snapped one of these up and found it was great. Our other stroke went for the more budget option of putting a sock over his handle, which was apparently just as effective, though somewhat less hard-wearing 

I mentioned earlier that some of these boats had a definitely not likeable feature, and that was the seats. Our boat had perfectly normal sliding seats on wheels, but some of the boats didnt embrace the transportational qualities of the wheel even though the technique involved some sliding which was done on a low-friction plastic surface that I suspect didnt feel very low-friction after the first five minutes.

We never identified what sort of shorts were worn for rowing on these, though imagined that by the end of the row, "tattered" would be the most likely adjective to describe them.

Blades and pins
The boats all had sturdy iron fixed pins, curved towards the stern so that the blade didnt pop off in the event of a crab or clash. The blades had a plastic block bolted to the front of the shaft that was hooked over the pins, which mean you werent actually levering the blade on the pin at all. But it seemed to work, although some of the crew found it hard to stop trying to feather, especially when we hit wash.

The final new equipment feature we learned about was that the stroke blades were almost always a different colour from the rest, usually red. This was to mark them out from the others because they were shorter, which they had to be because the boats are narrower boat at that point.

Our boat came with what I can only describe as "traditionally-shaped blades" (macons they were not). Some of the other boats, particularly those from clubs, as opposed to being rental craft like ours, had wooden cleavers, although these were all just a rectangular flat bit stuck at an angle on the end of the shaft than anything more shaped. They worked, though!






The course
The water we were rowing on was quite unlike anything Ive come across before. Technically, it was a lake, but not in the usual sense of a big patch of open water. Rather the whole area, for hundreds of square kilometers, is a jumble of fairly flat, tree-covered land, and freshwater lakes, that sometimes feel more like rivers in their width. If "archipellagic" is an adjective, then this s exactly the kind of area it describes.

Many Finns have wooden summer cottages in this part of the country, and come here for much of July to chill out in the tranquil scenery, fish or swim from the docks at the lake shore and, for a few days, wave at the passing churchboat rowers.

The race took us round the "island" (again, were not talking a clearly-defined shape here) of Partalansaari, starting at the green point and finishing at the red, and the very clear corners we turned were encouraging, real indicators of progress.

There were quite a few small rocks emerging from the water along the bottom of the island, which our coxes negotiated skillfully, steering with an interesting design of tiller that curved round them so they could sit centrally in the stern.

The race

Bi-stroke rowing: unlikely ever to be an Olympic sport.

The Sulkava Rowing Race is actually a series of races and un-timed tours that take place over four days. We had opted to do the 60km race, but there was also a 70km tour where crews stopped half way and camped overnight, and various 20km races which could also be done in smaller boats including the "bi-stroke" where one person sculls while the other steers a bit and adds a little (which frankly cant help much) propulsive support with a canoe paddle.

The start of the race was the most fantastic melée that Ive ever had the good fortune to cox in. With "only" 50 crews in our division, it wasnt quite as seething as the 150-boat start wed watched the day before from a conveniently-placed road-bridge high over the water. 

Wed all been given starting grid positions, which we largely ignored, and as there hadnt been practise laps the day before, its not like this stopped a massive amount of overtaking, barging sideways, and daredevil holding ones nerve as we ploughed through narrow gaps between crews.

Despite having been warned by other competitors and a helpful spectator who we privately christened "trout hat man" (he had a trout embroidered on his hat: he did not sport a fish as headgear) to start slow, we were soon in 9th position, and going strongly. We noticed that crews we overtook immediately tucked straight in behind our stern, as if they were slipstreaming like cyclists or racing cars. This isnt something youd ever do in a VIII because youd just be slowed down by rowing in the faster crews wash. But with churchboats being more closely related to car ferries than fine racing shells, the rough water wasnt an issue, though Id be interested to hear the views of those who understand these things a lot more than me, on whether you can actually get a slipstreaming effect when youre going at only 12-14km/h.

Just before half way, our cox (Id swapped in to row after the first half hour) steered us an impressively daredevil course across the bows of a rather charming chain car ferry (which, fortunately, slowed down) as we watched the crews behind drop further back as they elected to take the longer route round its stern. 

The course was extremely well marked, and with crews staying reasonably close together the whole way, the whole race was very easy to navigate. And it really didnt seem long before the cox called out that he could see the town bridge that we knew was just beyond the finish, and we powered on through the last 1,000m. As we crossed the line, the announcer made a brave attempt at trying to pronounce all of our names, before delivering the bitter blow that our finish time was 5 hours and 9 seconds. Ooo, we SO could have gone 10 seconds faster. Still we finished in 15th place, 39 minutes behind the winners, and over 2 hours ahead of the last crew.

On landing, we were met by a local journalist who asked in tones of awe "Have you EVER rowed 60km before", and seemed  slightly disappointed when I explained that, yes, most of us had, and considerably further in fact. However, nothing is like rowing a churchboat, and the reason for her interest in us is that we were not only the only British crew (containing one Dutchman) but also the only one entirely made up of people taking part in the event for the first time. the programme showed the number of participations of each participant, which included one bloke who was on his 43rd time, and large numbers who had done it more than 20 times. Who knew?!

This year, about 5,500 people took part, down from its peak in the early Noughties when over 10,000 competed each year. I think its time for more UK crews to start entering, in a 21st century kind of reverse viking pillaging trip.

Rowing, but not as we know it
As well as the slipstreaming tactic, another thing we observed with surprise, was that quite a lot of crews had coxes who must have had excellent steering and motivational skills, because they sure werent chosen for their petite physiques...

And none of us had previously had the experience of overtaking a crew whose cox was puffing away on a cigarette either.

But my favourite "youre kidding me!" sight was the rower who appeared to have eschewed the usual selection of energy bars and bananas that most people were stowing by their rowing seats to keep them going on the way round, and had brought a large jar of gherkins with him. 

Gherkins on board: completely inexplicable.

Footnote on Finland
The race organisers in this delightful, tranquil, and very beautiful part of the world were immensely helpful and they, like every Finn we met, spoke excellent English. 

However, wanting to make the effort, we quickly learned the Finnish for "Thank you" (kiitos, pronounced KEY-toss"), which the locals seemed amused by us saying at the end of a detailed English conversation.

Incidentally, the word "kiitos" is a great example of typical Finnish spelling: as far as we could tell, it seems practically essential that any self-respecting Finnish word contains at least one "k" and a double vowel.

The two men from Monmouth Rowing Club in the crew enquired of a barman how to say "Cheers!" and reported back that it was "Get pissed". The rest of us were somewhat dubious about this until we heard some locals... it actually wasnt far off.

The historical documentary 
NB The single ladies in our crew were jolly careful not to leave their knife sheaths lying around: theyd come for a sporting challenge not in search of a husband! (Watch the videos and youll find out.)

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Boat Plans Skiff | Tour du Leman 2006 It cant be done

Boat Plans Skiff

This 160km, non-stop race round Lac Léman (Lake Geneva) was the first big expedition rowing challenge I actually rowed (rather than coxed) in. 

Completing it changed my whole mindset, gave me a belief in what I could do on the water, and taught me the No.1 rule of long distance rowing, as far as Im concerned.

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Event: Tour du Léman à lAviron
Where: Geneva, Switzerland
Distance: 160km non-stop
Time: 16h 23 mins
Boat type: Touring coxed quads (known as "yolettes")
Number of crews in the event: 19
Event Organiser: Société Nautique de Genève

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Why we finished up doing it
A club mate at York City RC came across a poster for this event whilst visiting a gig club whilst on holiday in Cornwall. It obviously had to be done.

Why it happens 

The event started in 1972 when the Société Nautique de Genève (SNG) celebrated its centenary, and each part of this multi-watersport club was charged with coming up with a way of marking the occasion. The "rowing circle" suggested the audacious plan of rowing the whole way round Lac Léman, the lake on whose western end Geneva sits.

Before the race

We were the first crew to arrive in Geneva, and were impressed that, as promised, someone from the club picked us up at the airport. The race fee also promised free accommodation in "dormitories", which turned out to be in the local nuclear bunker. We should have realised: Switzerland provides a bed in a nuclear bunker for every one of its citizens, and in times when theres no immediate threat that the superpowers might press the button, these are made available as accommodation for community events.

See, it was turning out to be an unexpectedly socio-cultural tour already!

Being a mixed crew, we politely split up into girls and boys rooms for the night, and went to bed. We heard various other crews turn up during the night. In the morning, our socio-culural education was further extended, when we realised that continentals just arent aware of British niceties of male/female separation, and that all the rooms had become mixed. Well, no problem. 

On the other hand, we did find the tendency of German rowing gentlemen to wander around in the type of undergarment sometimes referred to as "budgie smugglers", rather more than we wanted first thing in the morning.

But on to the rowing...

We prepared the boat the day before the race by taping up the riggers in case of big waves, and stowing vast amounts of bottled water, jam sandwiches, and other snacks aboard. And then enjoyed the pre-race cocktail party, complete with canapes provided by the in-house restaurant, who were clearly experienced at quite how many nibbles 95 long-distance rowers could pack away.

Crews sprint off the start, en masse.

The race starts when a gun is fired, and the assembled mass of crews, sprint for about 600m past the famous Jet dEau, across the lake before turning through 90 degrees to head out along the Swiss (north) side of the lake. Within a few kilometers, we were past the iconic UN building and the field spread out. Some of the lakeside towns looked charming; many featured little chateaux typical of the region. At Lausanne, where the IOC is based, we said "Wow!" at the sight of  huge Olympic rings on show at the lakeside. 

Somewhere between Nyon ("Nylon without the "L") and Lausanne we finally got the hang of sculling yolettes, which involved rating at 24 and just tapping it along. If you rate lower than that, as we had for the first several hours, its like picking up a floating sack of potatoes every stroke.  You have been warned. 

Navigation
To ensure that all crews really do follow the perimeter of the lake, the organisers issue a number of waypoints round which all crews must pass. We had a borrowed an old hand-held GPS, and programmed the various waypoints into it. Bearing in mind that this was 2006, and the iPhone was yet to be released, we found this rather tremendous, and enjoyed the count downs to each point.

Practising swapping before the race.
We didnt get much better at it.

Swapping strategy
Most crews swap the cox every 30 minutes, so that each crew member rows for 2 hours, and then coxes for half an hour. The swapping procedure is rarely elegant. And most of the jam sandwiches met a sticky end under my foot during one of the changeovers.

And back to the rowing again

The day was hot, and we made sure we were drinking plenty, but even so, by the time we go to near the top of the lake, we realised we had over-catered rather in the drinks cabinet, and poured litres and litres of the bottled water wed bought, over the side. Given we were due to pass Evian in due course, this felt somewhat like the a watery equivalent of bringing coals to Newcastle.

Around 5pm - wed done a good days rowing, and rounded the top of the lake. Except we still had to row all the way back down the lake, albeit along the shorter, French side, to our bunker beds in Geneva. Hmm. As dusk fell, we turned on our navigation lights, which allowed us to see what we thought were the crews in front and behind. But frankly there were several little twinkly lights in the distance, and it was impossible to tell what was going on. To paraphrase The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy: Lac Leman - its big. Really big.

As we headed away from Evian, things were getting pretty grim, and here I learned one of the key things you MUST know when youre doing expedition rowing (or expedition anything else, pretty much). When you feel so tired that you cant imagine anything can possibly make you feel less tired, including eating, which would require more energy than you can muster anyway, eat. You WILL feel better. Yes, it sounds obvious, But youd be surprised how long it can take the bring to figure that one out, if it doesnt already know, and is having to come up with it for the first time when its tired and hungry.

And then the batteries in the GPS ran out. And in their case, not even the offer of jelly babies was going to persuade them to make any more contribution to the trip. And the problem with this part of the lake is that there are all sorts of bays you DONT need to go into, and one you do, and we frankly had no idea which was which, which got rather stressful. So we finished up "missing a mark" although only after a rather confused, shouted conversation in French with the safety cruiser that was shadowing us, in which they thought we were saying that we wanted to "abandon", when all we really wanted to know was where we were. Maybe "Nous sommes perdus" has connotations of "All is lost" - we never got to the bottom of that one!

On-board entertainment
Strangely, the black comedy of this situation rallied our spirits and soon someone reminded us all how, when we had announced what we were doing at the club, and answered questions like "How many days will that take you?", one of the elder statesmen had pronounced firmly "It cant be done." Actually, we were all fond of the gent in question - whose name was Colin Jones, and having reached the stage where you have either to laugh or cry, we chose the former, and launched into rousing choruses of "Colin Jones, Colin Jones, Colin Jones" to the tune of "Ere we go, ere we go, ere we go." Really, it helped at the time, and youll just have to believe me.

Despite our best efforts, attempts to play "Today I went rowing and I saw..." didnt last for more than a few letters as the boys hadnt grasped that youre meant to "see" things in alphabetical order, so we were mightily relieved when FINALLY we rounded the last corner and saw the lights of Geneva spread out ahead of us.

It gets better and better
After crossing the finish line, and paddling round the club landing stage, we were immensely relieved to find kind helpers to help us drag the boat out of the water (still with too many drinks on board), and we were served with a 3-course meal - SNG are just the best event organisers in the world. Two of us fell asleep after the soup, with our heads on the table, and were mercifully whisked up the hill to the dormitories, whilst the other three made the most of the situation and ate our mains and puddings as well as their own. No point in letting a good lasagne go to waste.

Rule No.2 of long distance rowing (Rule No.1 is EAT):
wear gloves (this was the AFTER photo).

If youre impressed so far with the airport pick ups, the idiosyncratic accommodation, the cocktail party, and boat-carrying help and pasta when you really need it - get this - there was also a Sunday lunch provided the next day after the prize giving. Honestly, if SNG made lager, it would be brilliant.

A couple of FAQ
Q: You were on the water for over 16 hours. Er, how did you go to the toilet?
A: We all agreed never to talk about that again. So were certainly not telling you.

Q: Will you do it again?
A: At the time, the other woman in the crew and I agreed that we were terribly proud to have done it, and there was no need to do it again. Do you think we stuck to that, though? Find out here!

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