Steering is one of the primary things a Cox has to get right and be good at – never one of my strongest areas!

I would divide steering into 3 areas:

• Multi-lane Racing
• Head Race
• Training

Multilane Racing

This is perhaps the hardest to get right – the reason being that when you are on a straight line course, it becomes very apparent when your line is not the same as the course. You will tend to find that if you do not get the steering right you have to endure such comments as: “I can do the calls, row and steer with my foot, and you cannot even get the steering right with nothing else to do!” or “My foot does your entire job” While I find these comments funny and in some cases sadly true – they are mainly made by total ‘planks’.

The Start

First things first – getting straight to begin with. You are in control of this not the umpire. All too frequently you give someone a Megaphone and they turn into a power happy pratt – NOT always the case but it does happen. Admittedly sometimes they are trying to deal with problematic weather and want to get you away quickly or they are making up time due to delays- BUT this does not mean your race should be sacrificed. Your race is the most important thing to you.

If you are not ready at the start then keep your hand up and make sure it is clear – but bare in mind if the conditions are very bad then the starter will be stressed out and trying to get you going fast, so don’t take too much time over it and make his job harder! Also do not have your hand in the air after the ‘Call Over’ of crews has been done – it is too late.

Be Prepared

 If you know the conditions are coming from a certain direction then be prepared for it ahead of time. Take your bow pair aside before boating and explain that you will be relying on them to keep the boat straight without constant commands from you. They know what straight is and how to keep it that way. If you are in strong winds then more leverage can be applied by having the 2 man take Bows blade and paddle with it or the 3 man with 2’s blade for the opposite direction. This method with keep the boat straighter and move it in more of a sideways directions which means less strain on staying attached to the stake boats. Equally gentle ‘tapping’ from Box or 2 does the trick in lights conditions. Be aware that you don’t want to be caught out with the wrong blade in the wrong person’s hands.

Be aware of the starters orders at all times. When up at the start you can find out how the starter is conducting things – quickly over all – pauses between Attention and Go etc. Tell the crew to listen to this so it is not a surprise when you are on the start. The start is about being aware and prepared to control the situation you are in on any given day. Don’t give anything away to your opponent.

Last Resort

If the worst comes to the then tell your crew to do a false start and then go back, calm down and get straight again. You will have a false start against your name and you therefore have to ensure you don’t do it again but if it means you did not go off into the lane next too you and get disqualified anyway, it has been worth it. This will take some ‘Balls’ to do by the way.

During the Race

Once the race is underway any steersman will have to judge his/her line by the distance between the oars and the marker buoys on either side of the boat. I have found that looking towards the buoys ahead is the best thing. I tend to use the buoys that have just immediately passed my position, in my peripheral vision, as the corrective guide. You get a feel for being equidistance between them as you progress down the course.

Gentle use of the rudder is all that is needed to make a change in course, the rudder takes a bit of time to pick up and a change take affect – it is sadly not like a race car. Baring this in mind do not add more rudder because nothing has happened, be patient. Only in a total emergency use a large amount of rudder, i.e. to avoid leaving your lane and being disqualified. Using a massive amount of rudder causes an enormous drag on the boat speed, therefore you must use it as sparingly as possible or you are adding time to your crew, which they will not thank you for!

Cross Winds

We have assumed that there is no cross winds or dodgy strokes by your crew so far. More often than not the crew will not take the same even stroke throughout the race, and the wind conditions will not be perfect. Steering into a crosswind is a very draining task; you have to concentrate on keeping the boat at an un-natural angle down the course into the wind. Too much rudder and you are going to start to turn and create drag, too little and you find yourself being blown into the opposite buoy line. The best thing to so is to try to get some practice strokes in the direction of the course, ultimately you want to do as much of the warm up in the race direction as possible. This will enable you to gage how much rudder is really required to maintain a straight line down the course. You will also no doubt get a feel for the intensity of any gusts and how to react calmly to them. It is all a matter of practice and practice. Being used to conditions and having the answer to deal with them.

Uneven Crews

Crews do not always pull the same stroke, and one of the results is an uneven direction. Sometimes it is major sometimes very minor. If one person is opening their back late or early, pulling hard with their arms or jamming on the catch etc, this will lead to an uneven direction. You need to take this into account and address it both in training and racing. In training various points need to be worked on, during racing these points will be exaggerated and therefore require you to constantly remind the crew or individual before they happen.

As a last resort you may need to ask one side to work a little less at the front end of the stroke (the side that is on the direction you want to go in). This will cause a change in direction but it is going to also dramatically reduce boat speed and disrupt the rhythm.

Simple Things

You can also make the simple error of pulling the lines if you are becoming tense or over anxious, or rest your elbows on the line, pressing the line with your feet. These will all make the rudder move under the boat causing drag and unwanted steering changes. I actually had a shelf built into the 8’s we used, so that the lines were below the shelves and my elbows could be tucked inside the boat and above the lines – thus preventing me from accidentally leaning on them.

Tips

My advice would be to make sure the rudder lines are tight so that there is no delay between when you gently ease a line forward to when the rudder actually changes direction. I used to always insist on wire as opposed to rope and I had a loop on either side which I slipped my thumbs through. This meant that I was not steering with my whole hand just a sensitive portion of it.

By using the armrests to protect the rudder lines I also made sure steering became more of a wrist action as opposed to arms and shoulders. Ideally a Cox wants to be in a fixed position – part of the boat; therefore you want to steer with the smallest change in your body possible. Remember, on a straight line course, during a race there is no need to keep looking out the side of the boat around the crew – nobody should be on that course and an Umpire should warn you if there is a problem ahead. You can lower your center of gravity down into the boat to prevent possible balance issues.

Head Racing

Head racing is where a cox can make an obvious and numbers based difference in a race. The Head Race season is usually going to consist of the same races year in year out for your club. Chances are that someone at your club will have steered the course in years past – this person is invaluable to you. Question them on the organization and the layout of the course. Make sure you find out if there are any tight corners or sections of the river where there is a stronger current. Find out as much as you can about the organization and also the conditions at that time of year which are normally consistent year in year out. Read all the information that is sent by the organisers, it is imperative you know the rules and there is usually a map included.

Getting to the Start.

Before setting out make sure you know the boating area and the rules for warm-up and marshalling. There is nothing worse than a cox that is finding out everything at the same time as the crew – as it happens. Get ahead of the game, when you arrive familiarize yourself with the area, where are the toilets, the blade areas, the landing stages etc. When you are asked you can now direct your crew to these locations – now you are managing your crew and helping prepare them for the race.

If conditions are bad make sure people have enough kit to stay warm – you may have to sit and wait for the start.

As mentioned a lot of Head Races are run in similar conditions year in year out. A good example of consistent conditions is Reading Head. It is almost always run when the river is a little ‘swollen’. This means that going up to the start will be slow going, and hard work to steer against the stream. There will inevitably be many crews strewn out with no idea what they are doing, which means warming up has to be done cautiously. When you take a corner your bows will get caught by the stream – make sure you anticipate this!

Be 100% certain of where you can and cannot warm up – ie doing bursts etc. You need to get the crew warm – that is what a warm up is – don’t just go through the motions! Use bursts of 10-20 strokes at varied pressures and rates – always with an underlying theme from training – ie using the backs or leading with the legs. Do not try to re-invent the wheel, athletes want to be familiar with what you are talking about. Make sure you practice going off a rolling start, ie how you are going to ‘wind’ up to maximum pace and then settle. Perhaps do 30 seconds off the start ideally with the conditions if you are allowed to. If something is sub-standard tell them and do it again – do not except half hearted effort for a warm up, the warm up is meant to be practicing how you want to race.

Keep your eyes open; make sure the bowman is watching out for you. Some head races have over 300 crews and this provides plenty of obstacles. Your job is to warm the crew up and get them to the start on time without incident.

It is important to make sure you are speaking with confidence and a clear directive when working your way to the start. Your voice and its rhythm can have a direct impact on the crew.

The Race

Have a rough game plan, based on markers you identified on the way to the start.

As mentioned make sure you have spoken to anybody who knows a bit about the course, get hold of a map if you can. Take the map in the boat if it makes you feel better – there is no harm in using the map to identify the course on the way to the start. There is really no excuse for not finding out about the course and then making sure you use the advice given to you. It pains me every year to see some idiot cutting across the Fulham Flats at the London Head of the River Race. This is total stupidity from the Cox and maybe even club for not preventing it from happening. Having said this, use your judgment on the day – if there was ZERO tide then the fastest course is no longer where the deepest water is. Equally if the conditions are so rough that rowing through the fastest line is going to prevent effective technique and power application, then take a slightly off-line. When the race starts it is up to the Cox to make tactical decisions based on what is transpiring at the time.

When your turn the boat to race you can also turn in such a way that you create a big gap between you and the crew behind – if they are faster the last thing you need is to be overtaken in the first minute – not great for morale – but potentially a situation you need to think about dealing with, ie using that crew to work off and keeping your guys morale up despite the overtake. Turn every situation to your advantage and to a positive.

That all said, the start begins prior to the line. Make sure you have built your crew up to pace before the line, you want to hit the line at full pace in order to maximize your effect on the finish time. Make sure you know a bit about the crew in front, if they are very slow leave a smallish gap so that you will get past them in the first minute but not so small that you are right up their ’ass’ when you should be concentrating on your transition to race pace. If they are very similar pace leave a reasonable gap so that you are not in their ‘dirty’ water. The ‘swirls’ from their blades create a turbulence in the water that makes it harder for your crew. You also do not want them crew in front to work off you and help their morale. Again you are the tactician, and both the scenarios is something you can have decided on the bank with good knowledge about your opponents.

Getting into a race pace from the initial start is paramount, Head Races are a long way and the crew must be rowing a long stroke and in a rhythm they are confident they can work with to the finish. You will have practiced this many times, it is now up to you to make certain it happens. Now your game plan must be executed, remember in general you are racing the clock, not many crews race the whole course alongside someone. Use the markers you identified on the way down to break the race up for your crew. I always divided the course up using these markers and then had a limited number of technical points I wanted the crew to maximize during the markers. You do not have to pull harder to go faster, you can make sure they are rowing with an efficient stroke and never coming off the boil.

The important thing that you are doing with a game plan is to break the course into manageable sections with targets. An effective and simple target like trying to be the last man out and draw the longest stroke between the Box Bridge and the Gas Works. When the section is complete give feedback on the target using the crews around you and then direct the crew to the next section and goal.

Feedback is important. Your crew want to know how long in time they have been going. You should have a rough guide as to how long the race will last. Let them know what the impact on the crew in front is and their effectiveness at executing the targets you have been setting them. Never lie about what is happening, you will struggle to regain trust if you tell people you are catching when you are not. IF you tell a crew they have about 1 minute remaining then make sure you are right – you are setting a pace and the crew have only a limited amount of energy to provide.

Keep them positive and motivated, push them hard to the line – there cannot be anybody with energy left over at the end.

Training

Steering during training takes two main forms in my opinion. I think as the athletes do you should always be practicing the best lines down the course you are on – certainly if it is a straight line race track. However on a large river you might want to allow an exercise to take priority. What I mean by this is, for example, on the Thames in London there is a lot of space and bends in the river. If the crew is working on a particular exercise like ‘one armed’ rowing or something, you may want to allow the boat to leave the racing line in favor of maintaining a straight line during the exercise – i.e. not using the rudder. This is up to you and the circumstances.

During training you should get to know the feel of the boat. Try different positions during training for your body. Try using the rudder and seeing how much you really need to get the desired change in direction. Try this in a range of conditions so you know for the future how much or little rudder you will need in extreme conditions.

Coxing, like everything in life, is all about experience, the more situations you have seen and know how to deal with the more effective you will be at adding value to your crew.