Quieter Release

Kathleen made it out with me this morning. It was a late start - she was still hurting from two days of bowel spasms and I was rather tired from two hard rows on my own. Although we were late to the water, 10:30am, there were very few people out. The breeze was light and water pretty calm.

As we are chugging along, almost retracing my route from yesterday, I noticed Kathleen had the secret of the quieter release: she was coming out of the water almost vertically whereas I had been feathering (rotating the oar handle) to "flip" the blade out of the water. I tried just dropping my hands before doing anything else and it made a big difference. Thus completing the evolution towards understanding the bicycle chain analogy of Kevin from the CYC Learn-to-Row weekend. Up, at the catch, then down, at the finish/release, with the hands at each end of the overall stroke cycle. Duh!