Coastal Rowing in Waves

In this video, Ken describes essential techniques for rowing in waves while Joel demonstrates. The way you position your boat, and the timing of your efforts will significantly influence your performance.

Video Transcript

​is the wave your friend certainly can be when you're rowing in a coastal boat it's really important to understand what a wave does to the boat and how to get the most out of your race pace for example if you're rowing up the front of a wave or up the back of a wave then you'll find that there's not a lot of point in trying super hard because it's really hard work to push that weight the boat and yourself up that wave against the force of the wave if you're coming up in front of a wave so what you want to do is you want to make sure that if you're going into a wave then you conserve your energy maintain your spot and then if you're going with the wave then you try as hard as you can to make sure that you keep in front of the wave very very important if you can catch a wave it makes your job so much easier so let's first look at how to catch a wave so when you and the wave is coming along behind you then what you need to do is to make sure that you start racing like really trying to race shorten up whatever you can do to get that bow speed up as as the waves getting to you you can see it coming so it's pretty straightforward to know when to do it so as the wave gets to you you want to be going as hard as you can to get onto the front of the wave and if you get onto the front of the wave then critical make sure you go in line with the wave unless of course your course makes you go somewhere else but if you can try and go with the wave in line with the wave and once you get onto the wave is you want to lean into the boat more towards the bow to keep the boat on the wave as long as you can however when you lose the wave the wave goes out from underneath you because you slow up a bit or whatever then there's no point really in trying super hard at that point unless you've got energy to spare or you're close to the finish of a race so what i suggest you do there is is just get your breath back get ready for the next wave and then do it again really important to try and catch those waves if you can because they'll make your job so much easier now let's think about going the other way so when you're coming into the wave so if you're going into the waves then the same thing applies to a fair extent if they're small waves then you'll find that the technique really is to power into the wave and just hold your spot till you get over the wave as soon as you're over the wave you want to again try to race down the back of the wave if you like it's not as long-term sustainable of course going with the wave but but you can still get some extra mileage out of that now let's talk about a big one so if you're coming up a fairly steep wave like you see here then as you get to the top of the wave then what you want to do is be ready to put the power on at the right time going over the back of the wave as you see here what happens is the bow digs in the bow's going in to the water heading towards the bottom what you want to do at that point is be sitting at the catch position and waiting and when you see the when you feel the bow start to come up put the blades in and essentially accelerate what'll happen is the bow will come up and as it comes up then it's ready to go and that's when you want to put the power on if you put the power on instead as you're coming off the back of the wave and heading into the water then it's just going to be hard work and you're trying to push the boat under the water which is not a very efficient way so coming up over the way from the from the front when you get to the top make sure that you're ready in the catch position as the bow goes down then wait for it until it started to come back up a little bit and then put the power on that way you're likely to get better speed out of the back of a wave like that of course always be very careful if you can to keep the bow into the wave if you're going into the wave and keep it directly away from the waves so you really want the bow the boat perpendicular to the wave if you can of course if the course is across the waves then you have to do the best you can with that but essentially the waves can be really helpful or that can really wear you out

and so you just need to feel the waves understand how the boat behaves in relation to the waves and make the most of it remember the wave can be your friend