useful rowing terminology

Blade: the spoon-shaped end of an oar. Can be used to refer to the entire oar. Bow: the rower closest to the front end of the boat when it is moving.

Bow side: left or starboard side (on the cox’s right as he or she looks up the boat).

Bumps race: boats chase each other in single file along a river and each crew tries to catch up with – and “bump” – the boat in front without being caught first by the boat behind. (In Cambridge this requires contact while at Oxford they don’t physically bump).

Catching a crab: the oar gets caught in the water at the point of extraction, which can have the effect of bringing the boat to a halt and potentially

ejecting the oarsman. Cox: from “Coxswain”, the person who steers the boat via wires attached to the rudder and directs the crew.

Head race: a timed race where competing crews row in a procession, generally starting at 30 second intervals, with their finishing times determining

their placing. Induction: generally a course run over a number of weekends to give a novice an introduction to rowing; skills acquired should be sufficient to enable them to take a seat in a novice eight. Rating: the number of strokes rowed

in a minute. Regatta: a side-by-side competition involving heats, semi-finals and finals for each event; boats compete from a standing start.

Stroke side: right or port side (on the cox’s left as he or she looks up the boat).

Winning blades: at the end of four days of Bumps races a crew that has bumped,

or caught, the boat it is following in each race it has competed in will “win their blades”; members of the crew are

crowned with willow from the bank

For details about British Rowing, call 020 8237 6700; www.britishrowing.org For the River and Rowing Museum, Henley, call 01491 415600 or go to

www.rrm.co.uk