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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