Safety

Why start with safety you might ask? We are always told about safety when we join a club and we all figure it is important so that nobody gets hurt, but safety is much more than that to a Cox or at least it should be. You are responsible for the lives of those in your boat, and if you train on busy rivers like the Thames stretch of London for example, you could do more than just an injury if you hit a large piece of river traffic. Death and dismemberment aside (which I believe are covered in your ARA members insurance), trust is the key issue I am getting at here as why it is important other than the obvious. If you are always hitting the bank or having collisions or near misses, do you think your crew especially the bowman will trust you? Not likely is the answer!

Every time you go on the water you are building trust with the athletes who are in your boat, by taking them out and returning them safely this is 1 less thing that they need to worry about when they get into the boat. I personally have only managed 1 ‘bad’ crash (I am sure I will get reminded of others now I have said that). I did not read the circulation guidelines at Reading Head in about 1992 and ended up crashing head on into my own schools 1VIII – a master stroke of equipment damage and humiliation!

I am not saying that you will never have a blade clash or two, as this is inevitable if you are being competitive. You must always be treading the line of what is safe and what is gaining you an advantage in these cases. Often we see the boat race crews clashing; it seems to be part of the course now. How often was it really necessary though? There is something to be said about a clean line having more benefit than being perfectly on the race line. What happens if you are stronger than your opponent and choose to clash with him and end your race due to injury or equipment failure (or other than the Boat Race, you get disqualified – we all know those umpires won’t disqualify anyone for that!)

These decisions are the coxes to make and suffer the consequences afterwards, having said that as a team you should be winning together and loosing together but never singling someone out for blame. Anyway enough on safety, I think you may have gotten the point by now that it is also a trust building part of everyday you are out on the river.