ROWING SCULLING.
In writing an article on sculling, a sculler must of necessity be egotistical. He can only speak of what he himself feels to be the correct way of doing things, and cannot judge of how a different man feels under the same circumstances. I fore put in a preliminary plea for forgiveness if in the course of these remarks the letter " I " should occur with excessive frequency. Sculling is so entirely an art by itself, that a man might just as well ask a painter how he produces an impression on a canvas as ask a sculler why he can scull, or how it comes that so many good oarsmen cannot scull. Ask an ordinary painter why he cannot sketch a landscape, and ask an ordinary oarsman to explain why he cannot scull, and to the uninitiated the answer of both will have the same sort of vagueness. Sculling differs so vastly from rowing that no man who has not tried his hand at both can appreciate how really wide apart they stand ; and the fact that sculling depends to such a great extent on one's innate sense of touch and balance, makes it ex tremely hard for a man who has tried his hand with some success at both sculling and rowing to explain to the novice, or even to the veteran oarsman, wherein the difference lies. There is as much difference between sculling and rowing as there is between a single cyclist racing without pacemakers, steering and balancing himself and making his own pace, and a man in the middle of a quintette merely pedalling away like a machine at another man's pace, and not having the balance or anything else solely under his con trol. The difference in " feel " is so great that one might liken it to the difference between riding a light, springy, and eager thoroughbred which answers quickly to every touch, and pounding un comfortably along on a heavy, coarse-bred horse, responding slowly to an extra stimulus, and deficient in life and action.
To scull successfully one must possess pluck, stamina, and a cool head, and must, above all, be a waterman. A man may row well and success
fully, and yet possess none of these qualities. Nothing depresses a man more when he is sculling than his sense of utter isolation. If a spurt is required, he alone has to initiate it and carry it through ; there is no cheering prospect of another strong back aiding one, no strenuous efforts of others to which one can rally, no cox to urge one to further effort. You feel this even more in practice than in actual racing, especially when going against the clock. You are your own stroke, captain, crew, and cox, and success or failure depends entirely and absolutely upon yourself. No one else (worse luck) is to blame if things go wrong.
The pace of a sculling-boat is strictly propor tionate to the quality of its occupant. A good man will go fast and win his race ; a bad man cannot. A good man in an Eight cannot make his crew win ; and a bad man in an Eight may mar a crew, but he can also very often win a race against a crew containing better men than himself.
People have often asked me why a first-class oar should not of necessity be a good sculler.
This, although a hard matter to explain, is partly accounted for by what I have said above, in that sculling is so greatly a matter of delicate touch and handling. Even good oars are as often as not clumsy and wanting in a quick light touch. Very few really big men have ever been fine scullers. This is partly accounted for by the fact that so few boats are built large enough to carry big weights, and consequently they are under boated when practising. Many big weights, e.g. S. D. Muttlebury and F. E. Churchill, have been good and fast scullers at Eton, but two or three years afterwards are slow, and get slower and slower the longer they continue. This, I think, is a good deal owing to the muscle which a big man generally accumulates, especially on the shoulders and arms, and he therefore lacks the essential qualities of elasticity, lissomeness, and quickness with the hands.