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 therefore 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 portrait-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 extremely 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 control. 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 uncomfortably 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 successfully, 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 proportionate 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.

Big, strong men also generally grip with great ferocity the handles of their sculls, and these being small, the forearm becomes cramped, and gives out. Many good oarsmen have never tried to scull, and those who have generally give it up after a first failure, which is more often than not due to want of attention to detail. What passes for good watermanship in an Eight is mere clumsiness in a sculling-boat, and, as a matter of fact, there are far fewer really good watermen than the casual observer imagines.

I asked three of our best modern heavy-weight oarsmen to tell me the reason why they could not scull. The Thames R.C. man said the only reason why he had never won the Diamonds was because he had never gone in for them. This was straightforward, but unconvincing to any one who had watched this gentleman gambolling in a sculling-boat. The Cambridge heavy-weight affirmed solemnly that he could scull, and was at one time very fast. He subsequently admitted that he could never get a boat big enough, and, secondly, his arms always gave. The Oxford heavy-weight replied much to the same purpose, without the preliminary affirmation.

Many men can scull well and slowly, but few can really go fast, and this, I think, is due to the fact that they do not practise enough with faster men than themselves, and so do not learn by experience what action of theirs will best propel a boat at its fastest pace. Nothing is more deceptive than pace; when a man thinks he is going fastest he is generally going slowest. He gets the idea that he is going fast because his boat is jumping under him, and creating a large amount of side-wash; but an observer from the bank will notice that although the sculls are applying great power, that power is not being applied properly, and his boat will be seen to be up by the head and dragging at the stern, and bouncing up and down instead of travelling.

The first and foremost thing, then, to be attended to for pace is balance, i.e. an even keel, and to obtain this your feet should be very firm in your clogs. As those supplied by the trade are of a very rough and rudimentary character, they will nearly always require padding in different places. You should be able to feel your back-stop just so much that when leaning back well past the perpendicular you can push hard against it with a straight leg. You are then quite firm, and can control your body in the event of your boat rolling. Although when a man has become a waterman he will find the back-stop unnecessary, it is safest for the novice to have it, so as to be able to press against it; otherwise, having nothing to press against at the finish of his stroke, he may acquire the bad habit of relying entirely on his toes to pull him forward. In such a position he is unstable, and if his boat rolls he has no control over his body.

Having got your balance, the next thing to be thought of is the stroke. Reach forward until the knees touch either armpit; put the sculls in quite square, and take the water firmly (be most careful not to rush or jerk the beginning); at the same time drive with the legs, sending the slide, body and all, back; the loins must be absolutely firm, so that the seat does not get driven away from underneath the body. If you allow the loins to be loose and weak you will acquire that caterpillar action which was to be seen in several aspirants to Diamond Sculls honours last year, and which ruined whatever poor chance they ever possessed. This diabolical habit of driving the slide away, although common to many professionals, cannot be too severely condemned, as it relieves the sculler from doing any work at all except with the arms, which, if thus used, without swing and leg-work to help them, cannot, unless a man is enormously muscular in them, hold out for any great length of time. The firm drive will start the swing of the body, which may be continued a fraction of time after the slide has finished. You will find that when you have driven your slide back your body will have swung well past the perpendicular (and in sculling you may swing further back than you are allowed to in rowing). When in that position a sculler is allowed to do that which an oarsman must not, viz. he may help to start his recovery by moving his body slightly up to meet his sculls as they finish the stroke. Thus by keeping his weight on the blades in the water as long as possible, instead of in his boat, he strengthens the finish and prevents his boat burying itself by the bows. The stroke from the beginning should go on increasing in strength to the finish, which should be firm and strong, but, like the beginning, not jerked or snapped. Strength applied to the finish keeps a boat travelling in between the strokes.

The finish is by far the hardest part of the stroke, and is most difficult to get clean and smart. The position is naturally a far weaker one than that of the oarsman, as the hands are eight inches or so further back, and at the same time six inches or so clear of the ribs. In this position nine out of ten scullers fail to get a really quick recovery with the sculls clean out and clear of the water, the hands away like lightning and clear of the knees, and the body at the same time swinging forward. As soon as the hands have cleared the knees they should begin to turn the blade off the feather, so that by the time you are full forward the blades are square and ready to take the water. Professionals recommend staying on the feather until just before the water is taken, but this is apt to make the novice grip his handles tightly, and press on them almost unconsciously when he should be very light. He will thus make his blade fly up and miss the beginning. In order to ensure both hands working perfectly level and taking and leaving the water exactly together, a man should watch his stern, and by the turn given either way he can easily detect which hand is not doing its right amount of work. Which hand you scull over or which under makes little or no difference. Personally, I scull with the right hand under. In holding a scull the thumb should "cap" the handle; this prevents you from pulling your button away from the thowl even the slightest bit, and makes your grip firmer and steadier. If in steering you must look right round, do so shortly before you are full forward, as soon as the hands have cleared the knees, but generally steer by the stern, if you can, without looking round, and almost unconsciously by what you notice out of the corner of either eye as you pass.

Modern professionals, with very few exceptions, scull in disgracefully bad form. W. Haines, Wag Harding, and W. East, at his best, are perhaps the only exceptions I know to this rule. English professionals, owing to the manual labour with which most of them start life, become abnormally strong in the arms, and trust almost entirely to those muscles. Their want of swing, their rounded backs, and "hoicked" finish they carry with them into a rowing-boat. Nothing shows up their bad form in rowing so much as sandwiching a few pros. in a goodish amateur crew—"by their style ye shall know them." They have acquired a style which does not answer, and which they cannot get rid of, and they consider an Eight can be propelled in the same manner as a sculling-boat. Nothing is more erroneous. They cannot assimilate their style to the correct one. Two pros. sometimes make a fair pair, because they may happen to "hoick" along in the same style. Professional Fours are a little worse than Pairs, and their Eights disgraceful. I am of opinion (and I fancy most men who know anything about rowing will agree with me) that England's eight best amateurs in a rowing-boat would simply lose England's eight best pros. over any course from a mile upwards. This inability to assimilate one's style to that of another man, or body of men, may be the reason why some excellent amateur scullers proved inferior oars, or it may be that they can go at their own pace and not at another man's. I myself have often felt on getting out of a sculling-boat into an Eight great difficulty and much weariness at being compelled to go on at another man's pace, and only to easy at another's order. If you are practising for sculling as well as rowing there is nothing like being captain of an Eight or stroke of a Pair or Four.

The novice, if he has toiled so far as this, is no doubt by now saying to himself that I am only repeating what he knows already, and that what he especially requires are hints as to rigging his boat, size and shape of sculls, and various measurements, the pace of stroke he ought to go, etc., Of course, the smaller the blade the quicker the stroke, and vice versÂ. It should be remembered that even 1/16 of an inch extra in the breadth of a blade makes a lot of difference. Blades, I think, should vary according to the liveliness of water rowed on, and according to the strength of the individual. For myself, I am rather in favour of smaller blades than are generally used. My experience leads me to believe that racing sculls should be from 9 ft. 8½ ins. to 9 ft. 9½ ins. in length all over; in-board measurement from 2 ft. 8¼ ins. to 2 ft. 9 ins., but, of course, this entirely depends on how much you like your sculls to overlap. When they are at right angles to the boat, my sculls overlap so much that there is a hand's-breadth of space in between my crossed hands. The length of blade should be about 2 ft.; breadth of blade, from 5¾ ins. to 6¼ ins. Even on the tideway sculls should be as light as a good scull-maker can turn them out, so long as they retain their stiffness. Do not, however, sacrifice stiffness to lightness. It is rather interesting to compare these measurements with those of a pair of sculls hanging over my head as I write; these were used in a championship race eighty years ago, and have a heavy square loom to counteract their length and consequent weight out-board. The measurements are—8 ft. 8 ins. in length over all, 1 ft. 9 ins. in-board; length of blade, 2 ft. 5 ins.; breadth of blade, 3? ins. I give below roughly what should be the measurements of a boat according to the weight of the sculler. For a man of—

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 forward; 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. 6½ ins.; width, 11¼ ins.; depth forward, 3¼ ins.; depth aft, 2? ins.; depth amidships, 5½ ins.; from heels to back edge of slide when back, 3 ft. 5¼ ins.; leverage, i.e. measurement from thowl to thowl across, 4 ft. 9 ins.; from heels to edge of seat when forward, 15¼ inches. She won the Diamond Sculls in 1886, 1888, 1889, 1890; the amateur championship 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 watching 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 beforehand, 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 succession, 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. 4½ ins. high; he weighed 17 stone; his boat weighed 50 lbs., was 35 feet long, had a 5 ft. leverage; his sculls were 11 ft. 10 ins. long. Compare with him Wag Harding, with a boat 19½ 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 preparation, 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.