Sculling needs more precision and more watermanship than rowing. The strongest man only wastes his strength in sculling if he fails to obtain even work for each hand. A pair-oar requires more practice to bring it to perfection than any other boat manned by oars, but a sculler requires considerably more practice than any pair of oarsmen. Strength he must have in proportion to his weight, if he is to soar above mediocrity, but strength alone will not avail him unless he gets his hands well together.

His sculls will overlap more or less. It is practically immaterial which hand he rows uppermost; the upper hand has a trifle of advantage, and for this reason Oxonians, whose course is a left-hand one, usually scull left hand over. The first difficulty which an embryo sculler has to contend with is that of attaining uniform pressure with square body and square legs upon a pair of arms which are not uniformly placed. One arm has to give way to another to enable the hands to clear each other when they cross; and yet while they do this the blades which they control should be buried to a uniform depth. How to attain this give-and-take action of the arms is better shown by even a moderate performer in five minutes of practical illustration than by reams of book instruction.

The aspirant to sculling honours had better, when commencing to learn, take his first lesson in a gig. A wager boat will be too unsteady, and will retard his practice; ‘skiffs’ are usually to be obtained only as teach boats with work at sixes and sevens. A dingey buries too much on the stroke, and spoils style. The beginner should find a stiff pair of sculls, true made, and overlapping about the width of his hands. He should ask some proficient to examine and to try his sculls, and to tell him by the feel whether they are really a pair. The best makers of oars and sculls too often turn out sculls which are not ‘pairs,’ and when this is the case the action of him who uses them cannot be expected to be even on both sides of his frame. Having got suitable sculls, let the sculler arrange his stretcher just a shade shorter than he would have it for rowing. He can clear his knees with a shorter stretcher when sculling than when rowing, as he can easily see for himself. A stretcher should always be as short as is compatible with clearing the knees.

Whether or not the pupil is proficient in sliding, he had better keep a fixed seat while learning the rudiments of sculling; it will give him less to think about; he might unconsciously contract faults in sliding while fixing his mind elsewhere—in the direction of his new implements.

He should see that his rowlocks are roomy. In most gigs there is a want of room between thowl and stopper. A sculler requires a wider rowlock than an oarsman, because his scull goes forward to an acuter angle than an oar, with the same reach of body. Nothing puts out a sculler’s hands more than a recoil of the scull from the stopper, for want of room to reach out. The sculler should examine whether his rowlocks are true; the sills of them should be horizontal, not inclined, and most of all not inclined from stern to bow; the latter defect will at once make him scull deep. Next, let him examine his thowl. This should be clean faced, not ‘grooved’ by the upper edge of the loom of oars which have been handled by operators who feather under water, and who thus force at the finish with the upper edge and not with the flat back of the loom. Half the hack gigs that are on hire will be found to have rowlocks so worn, grooved, and disfigured, that not the best sculler in the world can lay his strength out on them until he has filed them into shape. The thowl should show a flush surface, and rake just the smallest trifle aft, so as to hold the blade just a fraction of an angle less than a rectangle to the water, but this ‘rake’ should be very slight.

Having now got his tools correct, the workman will have no excuse for grumbling at them if he fails to do well. Let him begin by paddling gently and slowly. He had better not attempt to work hard. If he sees some other sculler shooting past him in a similar boat, he must sink all jealousy. Every motion which he makes in a stroke is now laying the foundation of habit and of mechanical action hereafter; hence he must give his whole mind to each stroke, and be content to go to work steadily and carefully. He must feel his feet against his stretcher, both legs pressing evenly. He must hold his sculls in his fingers (not his fists), and let the top joint of each thumb cap the scull. This is better than bringing the thumb under the scull; it gives the wrists more play, and tends to avoid cramp of the forearm. He must endeavour to do his main work with his body and legs, when he has laid hold of the water. He should keep his arms rigid, and lean well back. Just as he passes the perpendicular his hands will begin to cross each other. Whichever hand he prefers to row over, he should stick to. When the hands begin to cross, he should still try to keep the arms stiff, and to clear the way by slightly lowering one hand and raising the other. Not until his hands have opened out again after having crossed should he begin to bend his arms and to bring the stroke home to the chest. He should try to bend each arm simultaneously and to the same extent, and to bring each hand up to his breast almost at his ribs, at equal elevations. He must try to feather both sculls sharply and simultaneously.

If he finds any difficulty in this, he will do well to give himself a private lesson on this point before he proceeds further. He can sit still and lay his sculls in the rowlocks, and thus practise turning the wrists sharply, on and off the feather, till he begins to feel more handy in this motion.

On the recovery he should shoot his hands out briskly, the body following but not waiting for the hands to extend—just as in a ‘rowing’ recovery. When the recovering hands begin to cross each other the lower and upper must respectively give way, and so soon as they open out after the cross, they should once more resume the same plane, and extend equally, so as to be ready to grip the water simultaneously for the succeeding stroke.

Very few scullers realise the great importance of even action of wrists. If one scull hangs in the water a fraction of a second more than another, or buries deeper, or skims lighter, the two hands at that moment are not working evenly. Therefore the boat is not travelling in a straight line; therefore she will sooner or later, may be in the latter half of the very same stroke, have to be brought back to her course. In order to bring her back, the hand which, earlier, was doing the greater work, must now do less. Therefore the boat has not only performed a zigzag during the stroke, but also she has been, while so meandering, propelled by less than her full available forces, first one hand falling off through clumsiness, and afterwards the other hand shutting off some work, in order to equalise matters.As the sculler becomes more used to his action, he will find his boat keep more even. At first he will be repeatedly putting more force on one hand than on another, and will have to rectify his course by counterwork with the neglected hand. Some scullers, though otherwise good, never steer well. They do not watch their stern-post, to see if they go evenly at each stroke; still less, if they see a slight deflection to one hand after one stroke, do they at once rectify the deviation by extra pressure on the other hand during the ensuing stroke. A good steerer in sculling will correct his course even to half a stroke; if through a bend, or a wave, or other cause, he sees one hand has taken the other a little round by the time that the sculls are crossing, he will row the other hand home a trifle sharper, and so bring the keel straight by the time he feathers. When a sculler gets more settled to his work, and has got over the first difficulty of clearing his hands at the crossing, he will begin to acquire the knack of bringing the boat round to one hand, without any distinct extra tug of that scull. He will press a trifle more with the one foot, and will throw a little more of his weight on to the one scull, and so produce the desired effect on his boat.

When a sculler promotes himself to a light boat, he must be very careful not to lose the knack of even turns of wrists which he has been so assiduously studying in his tub. In the wager boat, far more than in the tub, is the action of the sculler’s body affected and his labour crippled by any uneven action of either hand. The gig did not roll if one hand went into the water an infinitesimal fraction of a second sooner, or came out that much later than the other hand. But the fragile sculling boat, with no keel, and about thirteen inches of beam, resents these liberties, and requires ‘sitting’ in addition, whenever any inequality of work takes her off her balance. The sculler must especially guard against feathering under water. He is more tempted to do so now, while he is in an unsteady boat, than when he was in his sober-going gig. He feels instinctively that if he lets his blades rest flat on the water for the instant, when his stroke concludes, he obtains for the moment a rectification of balance; the flat blades stop rolling to either side; when he has thus steadied his craft, then he can essay to lift his blades and to get forward. If he once yields to this insidious temptation, he runs the risk of spoiling himself as a sculler, and of ensuring that he will never rise beyond mediocrity. The hang back, and the sloppy feather, which are to be seen in so many second-class scullers, may almost invariably, if the history of the sculler be known, be traced to want of nerve and of confidence in early days to feather boldly, and to lift the sculls sharp from the water, regardless of rolling. Of course, for the nonce, the sculler can sit steadier, and therefore make more progress, if he thus steadies his craft with his blades momentarily flat; and it is because of this fact that so many beginners are seduced into the trick. But let the sculler pluck up courage, and endeavour to imagine himself still afloat in his gig. Let him turn his wrists as sharply as when he was in her, and lift his blades boldly out, not even caring if he rolls clean over. There really is little chance of his so capsizing. If he rolls, his one blade or other floats in the water, and being strung over at the rowlock, cannot well let his boat turn over, so long as he holds on to the handle. Meantime, he must sit tight to his boat, and use his feet to balance her with his body. He must not try to row too fast a stroke; a quick stroke hides faults, and speed tends to keep a light craft on an even keel so long as her crew are fresh; but style is not learned while oarsmen or scullers are straining their utmost. If the sculler finds that he really cannot make progress in his wager boat, he must assume that he wants another spell of practice in his tub, and must revert again to her for a week or two, or more. If he will only persevere in studying even and simultaneous action of hands, he will get his reward in time.

He should not be ambitious to race too soon. Many a young sculler spoils himself by aspiring to junior scullers’ races before he is ripe for racing. It is a temptation to have a ‘flutter,’ just to see how one gets on, but it is of no use to race unless the competitor has had some gallops beforehand; and it is in trying to row a fast stroke before they can thoroughly sit a boat that so many scullers sow seeds of bad style, which stick to them long afterwards, and perhaps always. When at last the sculler has learned to sit his boat, to drop his hands in simultaneously, to feel an even pressure with both blades, to see his stern-post hold on true, and not waver from side to side; when he is able to drop and turn both wrists at the same instant, to lift both blades clean away from the water, and to shoot out his hands without fouling either his knees or the water, then he has mastered more than half the scullers of the day—even though he can only perform thus for half-a-dozen strokes at a time without encountering a roll. He can now lay his weight well on his sculls, and can make his boat travel. He will have done well if all this time he has abstained from indulging in a slide; he does not need one as yet, he is not racing, and the fewer things he has to think about the better chance he has of being able to devote his attention to acquiring even hands and a tight seat. Once let him gain these accomplishments, and he can then take to his slide, and in his first race go by many an opponent who started sculling long before him, but who began at once in a wager boat and on a slide.

A very good amateur sculler—J. E. Parker, winner of the Wingfield Sculls in 1863—used to say that he always went back until his sculls came out of the water of their own accord. As a piece of chaff, it used to be said of him, by his friends, that there was a greasy patch on his fore canvas, where his head came in contact with it at the end of his stroke. Of course this was only a jest, but undoubtedly Parker swung farther back than most scullers, perhaps more than any amateur. The secret of his pace, which was indisputable, as also his staying power, probably lay to a great extent in this long back swing of his. He also sculled exceedingly cleanly, his hands worked in perfect unison, and his blades came out clean and sharp. The writer cannot recall any sculler whose blades were so clean, save Hanlan and also W. S. Unwin in 1886. Much of the secret of each of these scullers lay in the evenness of their hands; they wasted no power. F. Playford, junior, was a more powerful sculler, and apparently faster than either of the above-named amateurs (ceteris paribus as to slides, qu Parker); but taking his reach and weight into consideration, it is not to be wondered if Playford was in his day the best of all Wingfield winners. The late Mr. Casamajor was a great sculler. He also had a very long back swing, and clean blades. He never had such tough opponents to beat as had Playford, but at least it could be said of him that he was unbeaten in public in any race.

Steerage apparatus is in these days fitted to many a sculling boat. The writer, as an old stager, is bound to admit that he had retired from active work before such mechanism was used, he therefore cannot speak practically as to its value for racing. So far as he has watched its use by scullers, he is induced to look upon the contrivance with suspicion. On a stormy day, with beam wind for a considerable part of the course, such an appendage will undoubtedly assist a sculler. It will save him from having an arm almost idle in his lap during heavy squalls. But on fairly smooth days, or when wind is simply ahead, a rudder must surely detract more from pace (by reason of the water which it catches; even when simply on the trail) than it ever will save by obviating the operation of rowing a boat round by the hand to direct her course. Again, the fittings which carry the rudder must, when the rudder is unshipped, hold a certain amount of water to the detriment of speed. Also, if a boat is pressed for a spurt, there must be some risk of the tiller of the rudder (however delicately made), and the wires which control it, pulling and drawing the water. When the canvas ducks under water on recovery, it is important that the water should run off freely when the boat springs to the stroke. If a post stands up at the stern, however thin and metallic, this must to some degree check the flow off of the water. Again, the feet must be moved to guide this rudder; while they are thus shifting, the fullest power of the legs can hardly be applied. A sculler who is in good practice, and who is at home with his boat and sculls, should be able to feel his boat’s course through each stroke, and to adjust her at any one stroke if she has deviated during the preceding one. On the whole, barring circumstances such as a stiff westerly wind at Henley, or a gale on the tideway course, scullers will do best without rudders; and if a competitor desires to provide against the contingency of weather which will make a rudder advantageous, he had better, if he can, have a spare boat fitted for that purpose, so that if the water after all is smooth he will not be carrying any projecting metal at his stern to draw the water and to check his pace.

There is another objection to the use of rudders, especially for young scullers. It tempts them to rely on the rudder to rectify their course, instead of studying even play of hands so that the boat may have no excuse for deviating at all in smooth water.

All that has been said of the use of slides applies equally to sculling as to rowing. The leg action, as compared to swing, should be just the same when sculling as in rowing. That is, the slide should last as long as the swing. Now, in sculling, a man should go back much further than he does when rowing an oar. When he has an oar in his hand there is a limit to the distance to which he can spring back with good effect. His oar describes an arc; when he has gone back beyond a certain distance the butt of his oar-handle will come at the middle of his breast or even more inside the boat. In such a position he cannot finish squarely and with good effect. Therefore he cannot go back ad lib. But the sculler is always placed evenly to his work, it is not on one side of him more than another. He should, when laying himself out for pace, swing back so far that his sculls come out just as his hands touch his ribs. In a wager boat, when well practised, he can afford to let his sculls overlap as much as six or even seven inches. But, after all, the extent of overlap is a matter of taste with so many scullers, that it would be unwise to lay down any hard and fast rule, beyond saying that at least the handles should overlap four inches, or, what is much the same, one hand should at least cover the other when the sculls lie in the rowlocks at right angles to the keel.

To return to the slide in sculling. Since the back swing should be longer in sculling than in rowing, and as there is a limit to the length which any pair of legs can slide, and since also it has been laid down as a rule that both when sculling and when rowing the slide should be economised so that it may last as long as the swing lasts, the reader will gather that the legs will have to extend more gradually when sliding to sculls than when sliding to oars. Therefore a man accustomed to row on slides, and whose legs are more or less habituated to a certain extension coupled with swing when rowing, must keep a watch upon himself when sculling lest his rowing habits should make him finish his slide prematurely, when he needs to prolong his swing for sculling. Unless his slide lasts out his swing, his finish, after legs have been extended, will only press the boat without propelling her.

In rowing an oarsman is guilty of fault if he meets or even pulls up to his oar. In sculling, with a very long swing back it is not a fault to commence the recovery of the body while the hands are still completing their journey home to the ribs. The body should not drop, nor slouch over the sculls while thus meeting them. It should recover with open chest and head well up, simply pulling itself up slightly, to start the back swing, by the handles of the sculls as they come home for the last three or four inches of their journey. Casamajor always recovered then, so did Hanlan, so did Parker, and any sculler who does likewise will sin (if he does sin in the opinion of some hypercritics of style) in first-class company. The fact is, this very long swing back (with straight arms) entails much recovery, and yet materially adds to pace. The sculler can afford to ease his recovery in return for the strain of his long stroke. Also lest his long swing should press the boat’s bows, he can ease her recovery as well as his own, so soon as the main force of the long drag comes to an end. In the writer’s opinion, unless a sculler really does go back À la Casamajor & Co. with straight arms and stiff back, and until his sculls come out of the water almost of their own accord as he brings his hands in, it is not an advantage for him to pull himself up to his handles to this trifling extent at the finish. A sculler who does not swing back further than when he is rowing, will do best to row his sculls home just as he would an oar.

In racing all men like a lead. If a sculler can take a lead with his longest stroke, swinging back as far as he can, and can feel that he is not doing a stroke too fast for his stamina, by all means let him do so; but let him be careful not to hurry his stroke and thereby to shorten his back swing simply for the sake of a lead. Many a long-swing sculler spoils his style, at all events for the moment, by sprinting and trying to cut his opponent down. It is almost best for him if he finds that his opponent has the pace of him, and if he therefore relapses to his proper style, and bides his time. If he does so, he will go all the faster over the course for sticking to his style regardless of momentary lead. Some scullers lay out their work for pace, regardless of lasting power. When Chambers rowed Green in 1863, he tried to head the Australian, flurried himself, shortened his giant reach, lost pace, and, after all, lost the lead. When he realised that, force pace as much as he could, Green was too speedy, the Tyne man settled to his long sweep, and at once went all the faster, though now sculling a slower stroke. It was not long before Green began to come back to him, and the result of that match is history.

Similarly, the writer recollects seeing the celebrated Casamajor win the Diamonds for the last time, in 1861. He was opposed by Messrs. G. R. Cox and E. D. Brickwood. Cox was a sculler who laid himself out for fast starting: he used very small blades, he did not swing further back than when rowing, and he sculled a very rapid stroke. He had led both Casamajor and H. Kelley in a friendly spin earlier in the year, and it was said that it was to vindicate his reputation as being still the best sculler of the day that the old unbeaten amateur once more entered for the Diamonds, where he knew he would encounter Cox in earnest, and no longer in play. (Casamajor was by no means in good health, and the grave closed over him in the following August.)

In the race in question Cox darted away with the lead. Casamajor had hitherto led all opponents in real racing, and amour propre seemed to prompt him to bid for the lead against the new flyer; he quickened and quickened his stroke, till his long swing back vanished, and his boat danced up and down, but he could not hold Cox. Brickwood was last, rowing his own style, and sculling longest of the three. After passing the Farm gate, Casamajor suddenly changed his style, and went back to his old swing. Maybe, Cox had already begun to come to the end of his tether; but, be that as it may, from the instant that Casamajor re-adopted his old swing back, he held Cox. (It did not look as if the pace was really falling off, for both the leaders were still drawing away from Brickwood.) In another minute Casamajor began to draw up to the leader, still swinging back as before. Then he went ahead, and all was over. Brickwood in the end rowed down Cox, and came in a good second. Casamajor at that time edited the ‘Field’ aquatics. His own description therein of himself in the race seems to imply that he realised how he had at first thrown away his speed by bidding for the lead, and that he purposely, and not unconsciously, changed his style about the end of the first minute and a half of the race. His description of his own sculling at that juncture (modestly penned) was ‘now rowing longer and with all his power.’ This was quite true—he was not using his full power until he relapsed to his old style. These illustrations of two of the best scullers ever seen bidding for impossible leads, and then realising their mistakes in time, may be taken to heart by all modern and future aspirants to sculling honour.

Another reason why scullers like a lead is that it saves them from being ‘washed’ by a leader, and, conversely, enables them to ‘wash an opponent.’ In old days of boat-racing under the old code, lead was of importance, to save water being taken. Under new rules of boat-racing (which figure elsewhere in this volume), water can only be taken at peril. There is not, therefore, so much importance in lead as of old. As to ‘wash,’ if a man can sit a sculling boat, he does not care much for wash. Anyhow, he can, if in his own water, and if his adversary crosses him, steer exactly in his leader’s wake; the wash then spreads like a swallow’s tail on either side of the sternmost man, and does not affect him. His opponent must get out of his way, if not overtaken, so he need not disturb himself; and if the leader insists on steering to right or left simply to direct the wash, he loses more ground by this meandering than even the pursuer will lose by the slight perturbations of a sculling boat’s wash for a few strokes. It is good practice for any sculler to take his boat now and then in the wake of another sculler, and try to ‘bump’ him. It will teach him how to sit his boat under such circumstances, and he will be surprised before long to find out how little he cares for being washed by another sculler.

A sculler, when practising over a course, especially when water is smooth, may with advantage time himself from day to day at various points of the course. He will thus find out what his best pace is, and will ascertain whether his speed materially falls off towards the end, if he forces extra pace at the start or halfway or so on. He must be careful to judge proportionately of times and distances, and not positively; for streams may vary, and so may wind.

On the tideway in sculling matches, it is usual for pilots to conduct scullers. The pilot sits in the bow of an eight. The sculler may rely on the pilot to signal to him whether he is in the required direction; but when he once knows that his boat points right, he should note where her stern points, just as if he were steering upon his own resources, and should endeavour so to regulate his hands that his stern keeps straight, as shown by some distant landmark which he selects. This straight line he should then maintain to the best of his ability, bringing his stern-post back to it, if it deflects, until his pilot again signals to him to change his course, for rounding some curve or for clearing some obstacle. The pilot cannot inform his charge of each small inaccuracy which leads eventually to deflection from the correct line; this the sculler must provide against on his own account. It is only when the course has to be changed, or when the sculler has palpably gone out of his course, that the signals of the pilot come into play. Some scullers seem to make up their minds to leave everything to their pilots; the result is that their boats are never in a straight line; first they go astray to one side, and then, when signalled back, they take a stroll to the other side. Such scullers naturally handicap themselves greatly by thus losing ground through these tortuous wanderings. The simplest method of signalling by pilot is to hold a white handkerchief. In the right or left hand it means ‘pull right or left,’ respectively. When down, it means ‘boat straight and keep it so.’ If the pilot gets far astern, or if dangers are ahead which are beyond pilotage, taking off the hat means ‘look out for yourself.’

When wind is abeam, a pilot cutter can materially aid a sculler by bringing its bow close on his windward quarter, thereby sheltering his stern from the action of the wind. Races such as that of Messrs. Lowndes and Payne for the Wingfield Sculls in 1880, when Mr. Payne did not row his opponent down until the last mile had well begun, should remind all scullers that a race is never lost till it is won, and that, however beaten you may feel, it is possible that your opponent feels even worse, and that he may show it in the next few strokes.