Wednesday, October 26, 2005

feathering the oars

This morning we went out in a four person sweep. The water was perfect - as was the temp. We placed the boat in the water and then climbed in. I was in the front bow position, then Marcy then Jess and last Chow. I had the control of the rutters - which means you get to wear velcro shoes that are 8 sizes too big for steering. Chow was the tempo setter once we finally all four started rowing together. It was a little tipsy at first - if you don't feather your blades on the water then you could potentially log roll the boat. Lightly feathering is the way you reset the boat (aka keep it stable) inbetween strokes. Maintaining a rythm between all 4 people can be difficult too because if you are not mimicking the steerns positioning and catch then you have a see saw motion that gets more and more tipsy as you go along. Chow admitted that when she was setting the tempo she would forget she was and then try to match everyone else in the boat - creating chaos. It was pretty funny. We didn't go swimming! Yeah!!!

On Friday we get to take single boats out on the water. I am super excited to try that!

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