Head of the Charles 2022 Coxswain Video – Women's Senior Master 50+ Four

(bowloader POV) This was my first time racing in a boat that had requalified from a previous year, which is a different experience from being in the middle of the pack of lottery entry winners. This race involves no passing, so if you're looking for an example of how to fill the duration of a head race in that situation, here's how I did it.

4 Gina
3 Linda
2 Jackie
1 Rica

Bow 14, finished 14th out of 35

STEERING: Given that we were seeded in the top half of the event due to requalification and didn't have to fight for dominance in the fray of lottery entry winners, I was able to steer what I would describe as my current understanding of the "textbook line" at the Charles. It helped that we had an amazingly responsive shell, shoutout to King Racing for these new bowloaders. As you can see around Weeks, I was even able to do that turn with rudder only, which is ideal as the rowers preferred not be taken out of their race rhythm by changing pressure.

CALLS: This lineup had prior experience racing as a 4x, which shaped what they wanted from a coxswain. They had specific requests, including that they wanted to be talked through upcoming maneuvers on the course and didn't want to have to think about steering that involved them changing pressure. They also didn't want to hear about a boat that they were sitting on without passing, which I had to keep in mind when we couldn't clinch walking on the boat in front of us. I kept hoping the coxswain in front of me would make a mistake and we'd be able to gain some ground, but they steered a nice course. Even though we didn't pass them on the racecourse, we did end up beating the boat ahead of us in terms of time! The ongoing "predators on the hunt" metaphor was also the rowers' request. Overall I think I did a good job delivering calls that had value without being overbearing for a group of scullers who don't usually have a coxswain.

0:00 START
I think I timed this well. This lineup was used to calling their own start in a quad so that's why you don't hear me saying anything. If you listen closely it sounds like they were about 2 full strokes into their start on the fly as our bow passed the line, which I'm pleased with.

1:24 MAGAZINE BEACH
I'm happy with my line around this turn. In a bowloader with responsive steering and reliable rowers, I find it's easy to place the buoys under the riggers without too much fear of missing one, since you have good visibility off your bow. I basically just triangulate from one buoy to the next to keep our line as short as possible, but you can see a few spots where one buoy cuts in towards shore more than the next one, in which case I aim towards the corner of the next buoy.

4:57 POWERHOUSE STRETCH
I'm pleased with my line through both bridges—it doesn't look like it wavers much at all so while I can't see my hands to confirm, I believe I succeeded at making very minimal adjustments. I find that the stiff HOCR bow cards help with keeping a point. I was a few strokes short in my estimate that we were 5 away from River Street.

9:05 WEEKS BRIDGE
I do remember having the feeling of fear that our port oars were close to the abutment so I think I got as close as I was comfortable, though it did take another 2 strokes to get the point I wanted on Anderson.

10:53 ANDERSON BRIDGE
Watching back, I agree with my assessment that we were getting closer to the boat ahead. I tried a 10 to see if we could make a move, then I shifted to calls about the realistic goal of beating them on time by closing our gap since the start line, and I made calls to improve ratio and length. I can't think of much I could have done beyond that, again remembering that this crew didn't want to hear belabored calls about a boat ahead until the walk was a guarantee.

13:22 BIG TURN
As with Magazine Beach, I'm pleased with how I did on these buoys with the exception of that 8 in the travel lane after the 15-minute mark, which scared me off my line a bit. It's hard to tell from the video if we were actually in danger of hitting them, but my thinking at the time was that while they would get in trouble if they interfered with our race, clashing oars would throw my crew off and of course we wouldn't get any kind of time credited back for that.

16:58 ELIOT BRIDGE
Went well, I think it was a decent call to try to use the mini-straightaway before the final turn as one last chance for a move on the boat ahead. I'm happy with my point on the final green buoys but you can see I had the usual fear that our oars would clip the corner of the Belmont Hill dock.

18:28 FINAL TURN
So many low trees through this section. I don't know if I was thinking about it consciously but from my point it looks like I put the highest part of the tree just over the center of our shell each time, and it doesn't seem that the rowers ran into any branches. I was actually pretty accurate with the last 20 call; I believe I used the suggested landmark of the boardwalk on the port shore.