Omaha daily bee., 1910-02-06
INDOOR ROWING ON ACURRENT
Novel Tank the Syracuse University
0arsmen Use.
WATER COMES THROUGH sLU1CEs
sheu IN Not Anchored and So the Men
Learn Tricks of wntermanship
Usually Left to
Season.

ship and rowing In the few months OF Work
outdoors most of the colleges get. The uni
! versity coaches rely chiefly upon old style
machines for teaching the form of row
ing, and they plug away at these in the
winter months. 1t is dull work and drudg-
cry. seated on a sliding seat and pulling at
a stub car that ends a few feet cupboard,
where 1t is attached to a swivel. Then
when the spring season opens the oars
men have to learn all new how TO sit in the
boat to balance IL and how feathering is
done, not to mention becoming accustomed
to the actual pull of the water against the
oar.
There have been attempts made to devise
some sort of indoor owing tank that would
accomplish so much in the winter that
there would be no break in the spring
work for the sake of teaching what water
owing is. At Columbia there was once a
box containing a few sliding seats in line
which was set up on the edge Of the swim
ming tank. There the men got some sort
of idea what it meant to pull an oar. But
this was dead water and didn't give proper
resistance. 1t was abandoned after a time.
Harvard has a tank rowing device, but
the boat is fixed solidly so that there is
no chance to learn the trick Of balance,
and Furthermore there is a backwash that
retards stroke and bow in their attempts
to master the pull.
Yale, too, has tried the tank rowing de-
vice without getting anything that is really
first rate. 1t is likely that Yale will have
an improved system before long, because
Julian w. Curtiss, the graduate rowing
adviser at Yale, has inspected the new
tank at Syracuse, which Is the first thing
in the line of rowing tank that has proved
successful as an instructor in the art of
pulling.
The syracuse tank is so arranged that
there is no %backwash and there rs really
rapid current to pull against. Further
more the boat is so secured only fore and
aft in such a way that oarsmen have to
learn the trick of balance. After their
session in the tank is over and they take
to the water outdoors in the spring they
are equipped to sit in a shell without TAX
ing up time to learn the elementary points
Of Workmanship.
The season for work on Onondaga lake
is not very long. 1t becomes necessary so
soon to move to Poughkeepsie for the in
tercollegiate races that Syracuse has been
particularly eager to get hold of some
such device as a practicable tank. ]. Harte
Cunningham, superintendent Of buildings
at Syracuse, took the matter up and went
around to different colleges to see what
they had. After digesting his information
he brought out his idea, which meets with
the thorough approval OF James A. Ten
Eyck, the Syracuse dowing coach.
The car trough through which the water
pours like a millrace has also covered run
ways on both sides of the shell. There
- 49, H. -, a 1900 H. .It A.
water moves, four covered and two open.
The water is shot into the covered chan
nels on both sides of the open trough.
In these covered sections are shafts on
which are propellers that shoot the water
along. 1t comes boiling out Of the ends
of both of these boxed in ways and runs
into the oar trough.
The water dashes through the open
trough along to the other end of the chan
nels and then gently splits against a sharp
apex, off to either side and runs gently
into the boxed ways again. This is re-
peated indefinitely, as long as the machine
is required to work. In other tanks there
is no device for current making, and the
water forced sharply up against one end
of the tank comes back in cross-currents
and makes a backwash An electric motor
hGCPo NAAG WaACA IA III NAAC
tank. The tank is sixty feet long and
thirty-two feet wide.
The coach can really do as effective
work with this tank as he can out on the
water. The alignment of oars can be
watched easily, and the coach can. if he
wants to, stand on the boxed way right
next to the body Of the shell and give his
instructions instead OF being at a distance,
DC he hoe tn ba In q roaohinU launch He
always is close to the oarsmen and can get
a very complete idea of what they may
be doing that is wrong.
Mr.. Cunningham has devised a power
indicator which shows how much strength
is being put on the oars. This is of value
to the coach in determining just what loss
in power it means to the boat If he makes
substitutions and also the other way
round. what gain it is IL Jones succeeds
Smith at 4 or Brown is put in Robinson's
stroke seat. 1t also tells which combina-
lions pull the strongest oars. If one crew
can keep the indicator up to a certain
notch for a longer time than another crew
the coach can get an idea by making shifts
just which are the best men in his lot.
This is valuable knowledge, because I'M
der the old system of machine rowing 1t
was hard TO tell whether a man who had
good style really had power or whether a
big, husky man was as good as ne seemed
to be.
Another feature is that the oarsmen use
sweeps of the regulation length. The
blades have perforations in them which
helps "a little to offset the force of the
water. Matters Of rigging, which usually
disturb all coaches a great deal, can be
settled very early and a nan may be made
comfortable in this indoor craft and be
prepared for his seat outdoors as well.
Il needs then only transferring the meas
urements.
Still another thing is that there is not
the monotony Of the old-style machine
rowing. The men actually are pulling on
the water and they have something to show
what they are doing through the speed in
dicator. II is possible. too, to develop a
sort or rhythm of the selected varsity com
bination much earlier than II would other
wise be done. This is an advantage, as
all coaches know. because team work In
q shell is as important as almost any other
single thing.
The machine will have its first real test
this year, because, although It was in
stalled In time TO be of use for q while
last year, this season 1t has been en-
ployed throughout the fall rowing and in
the present indoor season. II the SYRIA
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