A Brief Intro

Why Row?
Crew is perhaps the ultimate team sport. Success depends on all rowers giving their greatest possible effort. This effort requires power (in the delivery of each stroke), balance and coordination (in the delivery of each stroke and among all the team members), and endurance (in sustaining this effort over the full length of the race, leaving all you have on the water). The work also must be in unison – rowers must work to make the team a smoothly functioning unit, not to stand out individually. The teamwork and discipline developed serve rowers throughout their lives.

Rowing is a total body sport involving all major muscle groups. The legs, back, upper body, and arms work together for each stroke, and sustaining this effort delivers a full aerobic workout of heart and lungs. Rowers are among the world’s most physically fit athletes.

Who Rows?
Rowing is a lifetime sport – youthful rowers graduate to Masters events at age 27, and many rowers continue into old age. Rowers are categorized by sex, age, experience, and weight to provide opportunities for everyone; there also are crews that mix men and women.

Boats and Oars
Crew racing boats are called shells. Made of high-tech carbon fiber, honeycomb materials, and fiberglass, they are remarkably streamlined and thin – parts of the hull are only about 1/8 inch thick, and the boat may be only about two feet wide. The result is a boat that is very light and strong – a boat for eight rowers can weigh less than 250 pounds but carry more than 1,800. Shells range in size from single (one person) sculls, about 27-30 feet long, to 60-foot-long eights, boats for eight rowers.

The oars propelling the boat are one of two kinds. Rowers handle sculling oars in pairs, one in each hand. Sweep oars, by contrast, are longer, two-handed oars; sweep rowers each manage one oar only, on one side of the boat. Except in single-person sculls and some pairs (two-person boats), racing uses sweep oars almost entirely. Like shells, these oars are light and long – sweep oars are up to 12.5 feet long. They are long levers, pivoting on a fulcrum – a swivel oarlock that stands out from the boat on metal riggers.

Rowers sit with their back to the direction of movement. They fix their shoes in stationary footrests, and sit in seats mounted in tracks, that move backward and forward as they row. Rowers then move the boat the using a sequence of leg, back, and arm power to force the oar through the water, while keeping the long, slender boat balanced.

More info
Many of the terms and events mentioned in this story can be found, with greater detail, in the Diagram of a Boat or the Glossary pages.