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 At Mystic Seaport | Gluing BH 4 and some things I found out about gluing

Boat Plans At Mystic Seaport

Alright, Im a little frustrated at myself right now, because things are coming along nice, but not coming along like I want them too. Everything will be OK in the end, but it wont be as nice and neat as I would like to see, and thats aggravating. A lot of the mess stems from excess epoxy squeezing out and making the seams look all lumpy and dumb. A faster clean-up job before anything even begins to think about setting up would have saved me from having stupid looking frames.

First, Ive been having some problems at work that are pretty significant, and I wasnt as focused on gluing as I wanted to be or could have and that led to sloppy gluing work.

Second, I just dont have wood gluing experience. My epoxy/fiberglass experience is solely focused on my Laser, hull #194, from the early 70s. This boat has hit submerged objects, sandbars, docks, buoys, other boats, etc. at speed. Laser speed. Fast. Rig humming with 2/3 of the boat out of the water fast. Once, it fell off my car... while I was driving. Needless to say, Id just slop some epoxy on and keep going. Now that Im gluing together my wood boat, I cant be as messy, or at least, Id rather I wasnt as messy.

BH1 is messy but will be hidden mostly from view. BH2 is somewhat in view and the frames are going to visible, and its kind of messy. BH 3 could have come out perfect, but it looks messy too because I rushed and didnt STOP.THINKFIRST.NOTSOFAST. BH 4 came out really nice and clean, but the frame is mostly hidden within the rear airtight box, so no one will see my clean job! Dammit! Roar!

So heres a tip to you beginners out there: First, read all you can about epoxy. I have yet to find a nice primer/tutorial on wood gluing for boats, and that would have helped. The Storer forum, my thread in particular could help you out. Second, my biggest mistake in neatness is that I waited for the epoxy to firm up to a putty and then tried to hack off the excess. This is a mistake. This evening I glued BH4 together, let it sit for a few minutes to excess epoxy oozed out, and just cleaned it right up. Presto besto pesto yum done. A nice neat job. Why I didnt think about this 3 BHs ago, I know not.

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Boat Plans For A Chesapeake Deadrise | A note on tools

Boat Plans For A Chesapeake Deadrise

A few things on tools that I have found out the past few days.

A japanese pull saw is awesome. I doubted it at first, hemming and hawing for months before getting a small one-sides saw. A FANTASTIC PURCHASE. Versatile, sharp, easy to use, and precise. Practice first, because youll saw through something important quickly and without realizing it (trust me).

My random orbital sander was a $9.95 DEATH DISASTER I purchased at cheap-tool-emporium Harbor Freight. Its so frustrating to use I want to throw it at the cement wall. I will have to go buy a better one that actually secures the sandpaper.

Most importantly, I was perusing my jigsaw blades and saw something called a "scrolling blade." It was small and skinny. "Hmmmm, I betcha this is for going around corners a little tighter than the normal blades!" Hmmmm, I reckon I was correct... and this was after I cut the hole through the transom, BH2 and BH3. Boo me, for not knowing my tools. Again, amateur style is my building style.

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Boat Plans Nz | Some nice pics from the past

Boat Plans Nz

It’s a beautiful day here, I’ve just had lunch, am sitting in the main cabin looking out over the river at the water sliding past.  Its heading for the open sea, a space full of wide horizons, islands and adventures waiting to be had.

Being as summertime is so close, I thought I’d post these pics that I came across while doing some digital filing. They’re inspiring.  Roll on summertime.

David Perillo in Navigator “Jaunty” and Paul  Groom in Pathfinder “Varuna”.

http://www.jwboatdesigns.co.nz/plans/navigator/index.htm

http://www.jwboatdesigns.co.nz/plans/pathfinder/index.htm

Thanks David for the pics, I bet they bring back memories.

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Boat Plans Catamaran | Some really good reading about a seriously good cruise in a pair of open boats

Boat Plans Catamaran

There are days when being an “armchair admiral” is not such a bad thing.  To sit warm and comfortable, listening to the wind shrieking and laughing at you as it tears through the trees with the driving rain rattling on the windows and shaking the doors is a very pleasant thing.  It’s a time to dream of warm days, sparkling water, golden beaches and gentle breezes.  Of meeting people who enjoy the company of small boat sailors, exploring places where one can pretend that no human has ever been before, seeing new vistas every hour of every day and  watching spectacular sunsets before retiring to a comfortable bunk and listening to the water lapping at the side of the boat.

Its such a day here, springtime, and I wont go on about it because I’ve said it all before, springtime can bring tough weather here.  But I’ve been sitting in my bunk, the boat surging at its dock lines, the wind doing all that stuff while I read this wonderful account of a cruise in a pair of “my” boats in Shark Bay, waaay north of Perth in Western Australia.  It’s a great story, well written, well illustrated with both pics and video, so get your coffee made, sit down in a comfortable place, and read on.

http://www.gaffrigsailinginwa.org/shark-bay-001

Many thanks to Author Paul Ricketts and cruising companion Peter Kovesi for sharing this, and to the “open boat” Yahoo group from which I got the above link.

Great stuff guys, keep up the good work.

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Boat Plans Butler | Rowing the Nile well some of it

Boat Plans Butler

© Nile Rowing Expedition,
Martin Paasman.

At 6,853km long, the River Nile is the Worlds longest river. Which obviously makes it a tantalising location for expedition rowing. 

However, in the same way that the answer to the question "How do you eat an elephant?" is "One bit at a time", a wise approach to rowing the Nile is to start with the 720km chunk from Luxor to Cairo. 

And thats exactly what my friend Martin, a Dutch long-distance rowing fanatic of the first order, spent 10 unforgettable days doing (do the maths – thats a lot of rowing day after desert-hot day).

Nile Rowing Expedition, Martin Paasman.

The importance of paperwork
Of course, you cant just rock up on the banks of the Nile, drop your boat in the water, and row away from the nearest pyramid into the sunset. The Nile is a major commercial river, and with other security concerns in the region too, the Egyptian government was concerned about the expeditions safety. This meant that it took a full eighteen months to get all of the appropriate permissions to start the trip, and arrange for Egyptian police boats to escort the rowing crews all the way on the water (possibly not the worst task an Egyptian policeman has to undertake in the line of duty). But all this desk-work was well worth it, and led to a safe trip in the end.

Just in case youre geographically challenged (like me)
So, the Nile flows North. Which I think is relatively unusual (but I gave up gegraphy at school when I was 14, so Im hardly an authority). Egypt is the last of 11 countries it flows through before it pours into the Mediterranean.

Luxor (the starting point) is near the bottom of the map below, and in case youre wondering, this isnt a special, minimalist map only showing the route this expedition took: there really isnt anything on either side of the Nile till you get to Cairo.

Enough of this geography, what about the rowing?
The on-water team was made up of 15 experienced rowers from the Netherlands, Germany and America. The Expedition hired two touring coxed quads from the Arab Contractors Sporting Club in Cairo. For some reason that no one ever quite got to the bottom of, Luxor Rowing Club doesnt actually have any rowing boats, although allegedly the organise an annual regatta and, rather like the famous very hygenic cheese shop that was totally devoid of cheese, the lack of boats meant there was a lot of space for rigging the boats.

Rowing on the Nile (taken from a VERY high bridge).
© Nile Rowing Expedition, Martin Passman.

WIth 15 rowers and just ten seats, each day five of the team had the opportunity to do some tourism.

Most participants arrived early in Luxor to visit the beautiful ancient monuments, enjoy Luxor and to get accustomed to the heat. White shirts with long sleeves, sun hats, and sunscreen were essential kit.

An unusual start
The first day of rowing started with a ‘blessing’ ceremony with fresh flower leaves for a safe journey by a representative of the Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and made the crews feel welcome. And then they were off, rowing on the Nile, passing the Karnak Temple (Luxor) on bow side and the Theban Necropolis on stroke side.

The Nile in these parts is a slow-moving, winding river, with palm trees and villages on the banks. And although as a whole its very wide, the combination of bends and numerous islands meant that the crews often found themselves on more intimate waterways where they encountered lush, green scenery, filled with birds and fisherman rowing traditional boats. Sometimes when the river had made her way through an area with rocky mountains they rowed with a barren desert on one side but  towering cliffs on the other. What didn’t change was the blistering sun with temperatures up to 40 degrees centigrade. 

© Nile Rowing Expedition, Martin Pasman

Lunch breaks in little villages along the Nile proved that the Egyptian people were very friendly. They provided the rowers with fresh baked ‘sun bread’ , tea and shared the shade under their trees. In the evening they assisted in hauling the boats out of the water.

Meanwhile, on the bank...
Those not rowing on any given day had a fantastic time exploring Egypt’s rich cultural heritage, including the Pharonic temple in Karnak, the Coptic Red Monastry in Sohaq and the famous Islamic mosque in Qena, whither they were escorted by a very polite local police chief (once again, better than traffic duty in central Cairo). They toured in a minibus on dusty roads and through Egyptian villages with friendly people and cattle on the road.

© Nile Rowing Expedition, Martin Paasman.

And, in case you were wondering, despite their best efforts, most participants also ‘enjoyed’ one or two days of not rowing due to food poisoning, sleep deprivation, heatstroke or exhaustion from the daily distances of up to 90 km. Well, it was always billed as an expedition not holiday.

Before we knew it, the crews were rowing into Cairo. We finished accompanied by an armada of rowing boats, official representatives and the press. A dream came true!

---

Fancy rowing on the Nile yourself?

Due to the success of this expedition two new trips are being planned. The first will be a recreational rowing tour from Aswan to Luxor over 220km in 5 days, starting in the second half of October 2014, with a sightseeing program before and after the tour, 

This trip will be followed by repeating the breathtaking rowing expedition tour from Luxor to Cairo over 720km in 10 days, starting in late October 2014.

Both tours will combine rowing with culture. We will visit world famous heritage sites like the Pharonic Abu Simpel temples in Southern Egypt near Aswan, Thebes (Luxor) with the Valley of the Kings with the tombs of the most important Pharaohs, the Pyramids near Giza and the Egyptian Museum in Cairo.

For more information about these tours visit http://thenilerowingexpedition.blogspot.nl/  or contact Martin Paasman. 

The Nile Rowing Expedition was an idea of Carola Grün and Martin Paasman, both members of Rowing Club De Laak in The Hague, the Netherlands. It was organized together with  Dabuka Expeditions, Arab Contractors Sporting Club, Luxor Rowing Club and the Egyptian Rowing & Canoe Federation. Under the patronage of the Ministry of Tourism and the Egyptian Tourist Authority.

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Boat Plans Skiff | Annie Hill Voyaging on a small income revisited

Boat Plans Skiff

I called on Annie last week, shed sent me the email and pics below, and I had other reasons to go north to Whangarei where she is at the moment.  Shes taken over my friend Marcus Raimons shed, and is busy building a replacement for the deep keeled junk rigged conversion of a Raven 26 production yacht thats been her home for some years now.
She has enjoyed that little ship, there is much to like about it but as she says, for her lifestyle there is a lot of prime water in New Zealand that is shallow. That plus being able to run her up the beach for a bottom scrub or maintenance is a saving, and Annie is very good at "saving", she can live comfortably on less money than anyone I know.

Her new build is really interesting, Designed by David Tyler, ( I know the first name is right but might have to correct the surname, apologies David if I"ve not got it right.) with a lot of input from Annie its her dreamboat, the one that she wants to spend the rest of her life sailing and living on.

Its to be 26 ft long, she says thats the "magic number".   Has a big slab of steel under the centerline, that will add immensely to the strength of the boat as well as being ballast, has two housed bilgeboards which double as legs when the boats grounded, junk rig of course, an outboard mounted in between the twin rudders, those with their skegs being strong enough to act as  supports when the boats aground, and an interior scaled to suit Annies small frame.
 For scale note the Barbie doll and her comments.

By the way, I impressed upon her that her fans would be expecting a book out of this.

So without further ado, heres her email and the pics. Way to go Annie!

My inbox is overflowing --
and I undoubtedly owe you a reply to a letter you wrote me ages ago.  The trouble is, that its probably going to be quite some time until I get round to sending you that reply.  I do, however, have an excellent excuse: Ive started building myself a boat!  I have been assured by one who presumably knows me well, that I could reasonably be described as having lost my mind, but thats what happens when you turn 60!

I love Fantail, of course, but North Island is an area with lots of shallow water, and I want a boat that can take advantage of this.  In addition, Fantail is now 30 years old and I dont really want to be maintaining a boat of this era in another 15 years.  So Ive decided to build my perfect boat, which, hopefully, will see me out.  Below is an impression of the finished boat (although mine will be painted in different colours) and a photograph of the model that my friend, David, who designed the boat, and I made.  The blonde lady represents me: she is the right height in her high heels and including the topknot, but the rest of the proportions are a bit iffy!) David is helping me in the early stages, before sailing off over the horizon leaving me to carry on alone.  But I have heaps of supportive friends, here, so feel fairly confident that when I need a second pair of hands, there will be someone I can call on.

So please forgive my not being in touch, and forgive the fact that I probably wont be much of a correspondent for another year or so.  But once my little boat is launched, I promise Ill try and catch up again.

All the best

Annie

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Boat Trailer Plans Australia | Going Just Some of the Wey A Mini Expedition Row

Boat Trailer Plans Australia

Expedition rows can come in all shapes and sizes. And fond as I am of more epic challenges, there are only so many of those you can plan and fit into a year. 

But that still leaves the odd spare Saturday when a short, slightly out-of-the-ordinary row can be fitted in. And so it was that a small party of just six of us, including two who had only been rowing a single-figure numbers of times, set off on a 14 mile round trip up the Wey Navigation Canal in Surrey.

Oh, and did I mention it basically involved going to the pub?

The plan was straightforward: to skiff from our club, Thames Valley Skiff Club in Walton on Thames in Surrey, via the Wey Navigation canal, to the Anchor Pub in Pyrford. And then back again. Maybe with a wee stop for refreshment at that turnaround point. 

The group had varied levels of experience: some of us had done numerous skiffing trips including "meanders" down the entire, 123-mile non-tidal Thames, and so for us, this was literally a picnic. Or perhaps a "skiffnic"? But two of the group had only started skiffing 6-8 weeks earlier, and for them, the prospect of the trip was a real voyage into the unknown, a challenge which one had rightly identified as being at least as much mental than physical. 

And it was their achievement that qualified this little trip as an expedition row according to the third element of my definition:

• Takes at least the best part of a day? Check. (Especially after substantial faffing around at locks.)
• On a piece of water you dont usually row on. Check.
• You get a sense of achievement just by completing it. Check for them, and it was a pleasure for the rest of us to help (as well as being a pleasant little trip too).

Slow, slow, slow, slow, slow (note there is no "quick, quick" in that)

The cheery lock keeper, hard at work.

That faffing I mentioned... There were various reasons why the coming of the railways spelled the end for canal transportation, and one of them was that canals were slower. Which is one of the attractions of them when it comes to leisure use. 

True to form, when we arrived at the first lock, the lock keeper had put up a sign saying, "Tending to weir. Back soon." Just in case his definition of soon was different from the one we had in mind, we went to find him, purchased the required licenses, were given the special lock-winding handle that wed need because, after this first one, none of the locks on this waterway are manned (its just too small a canal to justify that), and were eventually released eventually to rise up through the lock.

Despite not needing to find multi-tasking lock-keepers at the other three locks, these werent any quicker, not helped by some less-than-competent boatmanship and sluice management by a couple of narrow boats, and we rather missed the presence of chains to hold on to, which you get in Thames locks. Ah well, served me right for forgetting to bring ropes.

The little black thing at the top of the gable
is a cormorant. Honest.

But when the pace of life is slower, you have time to see things you might otherwise miss, and at Coxes Lock, whilst simultaneously clinging to wet, green stone steps, and eating plums, we spotted a cormorant drying its wings on top of one of the converted mill buildings, and shook our heads in a superior manner at the sight of people pounding on treadmills in the gym there. I mean, it was a  beautiful English summers day (i.e it only rained for about five minutes): what a waste to spend it exercising indoors, not out in fresh air!

Botanical ignorance
The Wey Navigation is a water world quite different from the busy, wide stretch of the Thames we usually train on. The canal is wide enough for two boats to pass but thats about it, its heavily shaded by trees, and the atmosphere is cool and tranquil, in contrast to the energetic bustle back on the main river.

A poor photo of Himalayan Balsam. (Fortunately, Im
better at rowing than I am at photography).

"What pretty pink flowers!", I remarked to my crew-mates, eyeing some tall plants that lined a long stretch of the bank. One of them, a good friend whose wide knowledge kept me entertained on our meander earlier this year, gasped in horror, before explaining that this was Himalayan Balsam, a dangerously invasive weed, only slightly less evil than Japanese Knotweed. I had heard of it, but had no idea what it looked like, and now I do. 

All of which only supports my theory that you always finish up learning something on an expedition row that you couldnt possibly have expected.

Moving on
With narrow bridges to negotiate, and a broad range of back gardens to peer into and evaluate, the miles just flew by, and soon we were there! 

And then, after suitable refreshments, not only of the liquid kind, we set off back, enjoying ticking the landmarks off in reverse order.

All in all, this was a very peasant little trip, requiring minimal planning (sometimes this is a relief after the numerous checklists required for more ambitious expedition rows), enjoyable for all of us, and a great way to initiate two new novices into the Honourable Order of Expedition Rowers. 

Next time, well go "all the Wey" to Guildford. Im quite sure theyll be up for it.

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