Your First Outing
So you've decided to try rowing. Great!
What to Wear/Bring
- Sensible exercise clothes, including waterproofs if raining. Baggy clothing, especially oversized t-shirts/jackets, is to be avoided as it will get caught on the seats/oars!
- A water bottle, hat, and sunglasses -- especially if it's hot out.
Safety
- Every rower is required to sign a swimming declaration before their first outing.
- Please discuss any accessibility needs with captains and especially coxes beforehand -- rowing is for everyone, but we need to know what you need!
- If you do more than five outings you will be required to pass an OURCs swim test -- this will be coordinated by your captains.
Useful Terminology
Names and Numbers
- There are typically nine people in a boat in Oxford.
- At one end of the boat is the cox, who is in charge of steering the boat and telling rowers what to do.
- Opposite the cox sits the Stroke who sets the rhythm of the boat.
- From there backwards, people are called by their numbers: 7-6-5-4-3-2, until the last seat in the boat, Bow.
- See this
diagram
for a visual.
- Your oar will sometimes also be called your blade or spoon.
Positions
- Backstops: this position involves your legs all the way extended, body leaned back to 11 o'clock, and arms tucked into your sides. It is the finish of the stroke.
- Frontstops: this position is at the front of the slide, with your legs bent to 90 degrees, body leaned forward to 1 o'clock, and arms fully extended. This is the beginning of the stroke.
- Square: this position is when your blade is perpendicular to the water.
- Feathered: this position is when your blade is parallel to the water.
Safety
- If the cox calls "hold it" immediately bury your blade in the water, squared, to stop the boat.
The River(s)
- Most rowing at Oxford is done on the Isis, the large river in Christ Church Meadow. Keep in mind, if your college's boat house is on Boathouse Island, you will have to walk through the meadow to get there -- plan in extra time!
- Some clubs also row on the Godstow, by Port Meadow, or the Abingdon stretch, south of the city.
- Depending on rainfall, water levels may be higher or lower, and flow rates may make the stream dangerously fast to row on. For more information, you can visit the flags page on this website.
Bumps
- Bumps racing is a special kind of racing only allowed at Oxford (and Cambridge). It involves boats chasing one another and trying to get a 'bump' by running into the boat ahead -- though more often than not, in modern times, the cox concedes to the chasing boat before the bump happens.
- There are two bumps races each year -- Torpids, traditionally in 6th or 7th week Hilary Term, and Summer Eights, traditionally in 5th week Trinity Term. These races take place across four days, with each day beginning on the previous day's finishing order.
- Colleges start in the order they finished last year -- you can see where your college is, and their history (back to the 1800s!) here.
- If your boat bumps all four days, you are awarded 'Blades' -- you may have seen blades engraved with the names, year, and bumps of crews in your college's bar/common room!
