How the catch placement changes with the oar angle. Why an acute catch angle with the oar is easier. Ways to adjust your catch technique as the boat speed changes.
Timestamps
01:00 Catches and boat speed
When the blade goes into the water at the catch, it needs to be buried rapidly and the curved face of the blade needs to grip the water. the early lock on point is hard to achieve – it depends on how and where you place the blade.
02:45 Blade face to the water
The boat is a single unit moving through the water – water molecules are moving past the boat parallel to the length of the boat hull. The ideal oar placement should have the smallest surface area possible to the direction of travel. At half slide your oar is around 90 degrees to the boat length. It’s slow to place the oar.
At the catch, the face of the work going into the water is reduced to around 15 cms compared to half slide. At the extreme, if the oar is parallel to the side of the boat – this reduces to about 1.5 to 3 centimeters width.
07:00 The smaller the face of work of the blade to the water, the easier the blade goes into the water. When the blade is in the same plane as the water movement, it goes in easiest. At very short strokes – arms only – it’s hard to place the blade. With the smaller face of work area at the catch, using an acute angle, it feels easier to place the blade.
08:30 Prepare your catch angle on the recovery.
From half slide to the catch, your legs and seat move in a straight line up the slides to the catch. However your handle(s) are pivoting around the arc of a circle centred on the pin of the oarlock. Your body in sweep rotates around the pin – keep your shoulders parallel to the oar handle and let your eyes look out on your side of the boat – this helps create more rotation because your body follows where your eyes are looking. In sculling both your handles are pivoting around the arc of a circle – your arms move further than your legs from half slide to the catch. In effect there are 2 speeds on the recovery – the seat speed, and a faster speed of your hands leading the oar handles around the pin and upwards to place the oar under the water. By allowing your arms to go wider at the catch in sculling, you will get a more acute catch angle. Row longer by thinking about your arms, separately from your body.
13:30 Faster boat speed
When the boat speeds up and rate increases, you have less time per stroke to anticipate the catch. Often stroke length shortens as stroke rate rises. Counter this by moving your thinking earlier in the recovery. This gives you more reaction time. You need to move your body proportionate to the rate – as rate rises your body speed also increases. When you get the catch timing right the catch can feel very light (not heavily loaded on the blade).
16:00 Train yourself by trying a drill. Go from full slide to half slide – it gives the impression you’re rating very high. Prepare early at half slide so you don’t miss water at the catch. Then try to maintain the same boat speed you had at full slide. You move dynamically off the catch placement.
https://youtube.com/live/Qw0mZjCk3jI
https://soundcloud.com/rowingchat/catches-and-boat-speed
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