As to slide, I hold that a man should slide to a point level with his rowing-pin--never past it, lest the boat should be pinched instead of being driven at the beginning of the stroke. The clogs should be fixed at an angle of 55° to the keel (i.e. an angle measured along the back of the clogs). If the angle is much smaller, the feet and legs lose power when the sculler is full back, and the drive at the finish is weakened. If the angle is greater, the difficulty of bending the ankle-joints sufficiently as the slide moves forward becomes very serious. The distance of fifteen inches from the heel of the clogs to the edge of slide when full forward may be slightly reduced, but only slightly. For instance, if reduced, as is sometimes done, to ten inches, the body comes too close to the heels in the forward position to enable the sculler to get a strong, direct, and immediate drive, and the boat is pinched.
A very old sculling-boat of mine—and perhaps the best that Clasper ever built—was built for Mr. F. I. Pitman in 1886. She owed her pace to the fact that she was very long aft, and consequently never got up by the head; her cut-water was always in the water, even when her occupant was full for ward ; and the most marvellous thing was that, low as she was, she did not bury her nose, considering that she had to endure a weight of 170 lbs. or so, shifting its position fore and aft to the extent of sixteen inches. She is a marvel of the boat builder's art, and was built of exceptionally close framed cedar, which takes a long time to get water-soaked, and indeed should never do so if properly looked after. Her dimensions were : Length, 31 ft. 2 ins. ; length from edge of sliding seat when forward to stern-post, 14 ft. 6. ins. ; width, Hi ins. ; depth forward, 34 ins. ; depth aft, 2- ins. ; depth amidships, 51- ins. ; from heels to back edge of slide when back, 3 ft. 51 ins. ; lever age, i.e. measurement from thowl to thowl across, 4 ft. 9 ins. ; from heels to edge of seat when forward, ist inches. She won the Diamond Sculls in 1886, 1888, 1889, 189o; the amateur cham pionship in 1886, 1887, 1888, 1889, 1890 ; besides the Metropolitan Sculls and several minor races.
It is a great mistake to try and get a boat too light. The eagerness a man will display in cutting down everything to lessen the weight of his craft, until he is sitting on the water on a weak bit of nothing, is really astounding. Three or four extra pounds often make all the difference, whether a boat is stiff and keeps on travelling, or whether she jumps, cocks her head, and waggles about generally.
As to the pace of stroke, from twenty-two to twenty-six strokes a minute is a fair practice paddle, twenty-four to twenty-eight for sculling hard, and in racing, even for a minute, never attempt anything over thirty-eight. I once sculled seventy eight strokes in two minutes, and felt more dead than alive at the end of it. It is harder work to scull thirty-eight strokes in a minute than it is to row forty-four in the same time. If you do start at thirty-eight, drop down as soon as possible to thirty-four, thirty-two, or even thirty, according to circumstances of wind and weather, etc. My best advice to the novice is to go just fast enough to clean out his opponent before the same thing happens to himself, or, even better still, to get his opponent beaten, and leave himself fresh. But always remember if you are at all evenly matched, that however bad you feel yourself, your opponent is probably in just as bad a plight. Talking of pace reminds me of how soon even the best scullers tire. In sculling a course against time at Henley,
a good man may get to Fawley, the halfway point, in about the same time as a Pair, and yet will be half a minute slower from that point to the finish ; and for the last quarter-mile the veriest tiro can out-scull a champion, provided the latter has gone at his best pace throughout. In scull-racing the advantage of the lead is greater than in rowing, as a sculler can help his own steering by watch ing the direction of the other's craft. Yet you should never sacrifice your wind to obtain the advantage, for recollect that in sculling you can never take a blow or an easy for even a stroke. If you are behind, never turn round to look at your opponent, as by doing so you lose balance and pace, and many a good man has lost a race by so doing. Keep just so close up to your man as to prevent him giving you the disadvantage of his back wash.
Training for sculling requires more time and practice than training for rowing. If it takes an Eight 6 weeks to get together and fit to race, it takes a Four 9 weeks, a Pair 12 weeks, and a Sculler 15 weeks. If a man is training for both rowing and sculling at the same time, and racing in both on the same day, it takes lengths and lengths off his pace, for rowing upsets all that precision so necessary in sculling. If a man sculls and rows at Henley, and does both on the same day, and practises for the same daily for a month before hand, I should think it would make him from six to eight lengths slower on the Henley course. Otherwise, train as you would for rowing, the only difference being that a little more time should be spent in the actual sculling than is spent in the actual rowing.
Having attended Henley Regatta since 1883, and having raced there for twelve years in suc cession, I have met with various scullers. Mr. J. C. Gardner, taking him all round, was the finest I have ever seen of amateurs. He was quite the best stripped man I have ever seen, his muscles standing out like bars of steel all over his body ; he was a very neat, finished sculler, the only fault I could find with him being a tendency to a weak finish. W. S. Unwin, a light weight, was extremely neat, but his style was rather spoilt by a roundish back. F. I. Pitman, his great rival, was perhaps a better stayer, and had a more elegant style. Vivian Nickalls, for a long man, was a fine sculler, handicapped by an awkward finish and handicapped also by the fact that he never entirely gave his time up to sculling only—his chief characteristic being a fine, healthy, long body swing. M. Bidault, a Frenchman, who rowed in the Metropolitan Regatta some years ago, was 7 ft. 4i ins, high ; he weighed 17 stone ; his boat weighed so lbs., was 35 feet long, had a 5 ft. leverage ; his sculls were 'ft. xo ins. long. Com pare with him Wag Harding, with a boat 19?-- lbs. in weight, weighing 9 stone himself, and you will see in what different forms and shapes men can scull. And M. Bidault was a fast man for a quarter of a mile. The fastest sculler for half a mile I have ever seen was Herr Doering, who sculled for the Diamonds in 1887. The slowest man I have ever seen was Well, I won't mention names, as he might go in for the Diamond Sculls again. Rupert Guinness, although not what I should call a born sculler, obtained his great proficiency in sculling by dint of a very long and careful pre paration, by months and months of continual practice, and by not hampering his sculling by entering and practising for rowing events at the same time—in fact, by making a speciality of sculling.