This outing happened during the leisure session mentioned in the last post, however I decided it warranted its own entry.
I finally felt brave enough to ask if I could take my fine single out in the leisure session, having recently done multiple outings in explorer doubles and one outing recent outing in a fine double with me steering for most of them (bow seat). I thought with winter nearing, I was in danger of missing out until next year if I didn’t bite the bullet soon.
The person who runs the leisure group likes me attending their sessions, even though I row with the masters group, because she can then use me to take newer rowers, who are progressing from the explorer quads, out in the explorer doubles, as she feels they will be safe and can learn from me being a more confident and experienced rower.
My taking the single out was on condition that it worked out numbers wise for the rest of the group.
Fortunately, the person who would have been placed with me in a double, decided to go on the launch and have some training on launch driving, leaving me free to take my boat ‘Dark Horse’ out.
My oars have not arrived yet, so I used a pair of club oars which I think are Concept 2 ‘Fat2’ blades, mine when they come will be Concept 2 ‘Comp skinnies’.
Launching was without incident although I was somewhat anxious going across the river rowing arms only and was still quite anxious when we set off up towards the motorway bridge.
This shot is immediately after launching and was taken from the dock before I headed across the river.
The coach just reminded me a few times to relax, as she could see my shoulders tensing up and to take it at whatever pace worked for me, my heart rate was up around 118, despite putting hardly effort into the strokes, again this was mainly due to nerves.
My first 1500m up to the motorway bridge was all arms only with body lean, faltering a little every now and again and having to reset, but this was almost entirely down to nerves. By the last 500m or so I was starting to add some power to my arms only strokes and then pausing at the finish after the body lean.
I can see that my hands are not quite close enough together in this shot and one oar is buried deeper than the other. I was still rowing arms only at this point, that is the motorway bridge in the background.
In my defence, these oars are not matched to my boat and I have the cuts on my knuckles to prove I was keeping my hands close to each other during the mid part of the stroke.
I then had a rest and a drink after turning around and waiting for the two explorer quads to do the same.
I then set off ahead of them arms only again, but within about 500m I was feeling relaxed enough to start adding some slide and slowly progressed from 1/4 slide to 1/2 slide and finally 3/4 slide, I was still not feeling brave enough for full slide yet.
By the time I was passing the boat club I was doing continuous rowing at about 3/4 slide, heart rate about 125 and happy with how level I was keeping the boat and also with my steering around the bends in the river.
In all a very successful outing covering 3,878m, huge jumps in confidence and progression, I managed not to hit anything and I came back dry which is always a bonus.
I would have taken some video footage, but the mount I took with me (The Flying Boatman Bow Camera Mount) is designed to go in the number slot.
This appears to be missing (broken off) from the boat – I have just checked the photos from when I bought it and it was missing then as well – I will just have to buy a new one and may treat myself to a new bow ball at the same time.
I also bought the Stern Light Mount,
which like the Bow Camera Mount is designed to take LED bicycle lights, the one shown in the above picture is a Moon Crescent Mini Front light, these are USB rechargeable and have multiple flash or steady light options. I bought 2 of them from Certini.co.uk.
The requirement on the Thames for low light usage is a flashing white light on the bow, mounted in the number/Empacher slot and a steady white light mounted at the stern, as well as a recommendation that you wear white reflective clothing from the waist up.
I can also use these as a front light on my bicycle (their original designed intent) as they are very simple to remove with just a rubber loop holding them in place.