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Coxswain Tips: Steer Like a Boss
Picture yourself pushing a shopping cart backwards. Naturally, you move the light end of the cart to one side or the other in order to push the heavy end of the cart around. The rudder in the boat works the way your hands would on the cart—it moves the stern to one side or the other to change the overall direction the boat is pointing in.
Now picture yourself pushing a shopping cart backwards... on an ice skating rink. The cart keeps sliding around after you’ve stopped pushing it. Instead of going straight from one end of the rink to the other, the cart makes giant S-shaped turns, much like the boat on the water.
The solution: during the drive, turn the rudder slightly and hold it there for one stroke, then straighten it. Keep the rudder in the neutral (straight) position until the point (the direction you’re heading) stops changing. Now try turning the rudder the same amount as you did before, but this time, hold it for two or three strokes before straightening it. Experiment with different amounts of rudder for different amounts of time. Eventually you will get a feel for the momentum*, and steering a boat will feel as natural as steering a car.
*Remember: the heavier the boat is, and the faster it’s going, the more it will keep turning after you stop steering.
There are two important things to remember when you’re at the rudder:
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The boat steers from the rear
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You’re moving on a frictionless surface
The traditional way to steer without using the rudder is to ask one side of the boat to row harder--starboards take a power ten while ports hold the pressure--the starboards in this case are effectively forcing the bow around to port. If it’s a really tight turn, you’d have one side increase pressure while the other side lightens up--starboards take some power strokes while ports go to half pressure--the starboards don’t have to fight against the ports to get the bow to move over, and the boat makes a sharper turn. There is a better way, though.
First, some physics (stay with me): the closer the blades are to the centerline of the boat, the more influence they have on the direction of the boat. This is why there is one rudder, right on the centerline.
This means rowers have more turning power at the ends of the stroke than they do in the middle of the drive. So instead of having one side simply row harder, try having them row longer (it’s impossible for one side to row longer without rowing a little bit harder, since they still have to coordinate their catches and finishes with the side that isn’t lengthening, but the emphasis will be correct). If it’s an especially tight turn, you can have the rowers on the inside of the turn go down to three-quarter slide, or even half slide if they can make the timing work.
It takes some practice, and definitely requires planning ahead, but a huge benefit of turning this way is that the boat straightens out immediately after you have both sides row with equal length, no residual turning and no more comments about how you’ve been carving your name into the river.
