#TBT: An Inside Look at Torpids 2015, with Duncan Coneybeare of Hertford College, Oxford



This week's 'Throwback Thursday' post is from this year's Torpids, following the successful campaign of Hertford College's top men's eight. Torpids, held in late February/early March, is traditionally the first of two 'Bumps' racing series held at Oxford, pitting college crews against one another along a stretch of the River Thames known as the Isis (which gives its name to OUBC's reserve crew for the Boat Races). The second series of bumps racing is Summer Eights, or simply Eights, which is similar in structure, and is held at the end of May.

Hertford has a strong history of training novices, several of whom have gone on to represent their country, including Paul Mattick, Steph Cullen, and Zoe Lee. As Hertford College alum and Regatta Radio commentator Duncan Coneybeare explains.

Duncan Coneybeare: "The College is shown briefly in the opening seconds of the first video. The training shots of the eight are filmed on the Radley stretch outside of Oxford, where Hertford and the other top college crews tend to train, while the footage in the single is on the top stretch of the Isis in Oxford, going past a number of the College boathouses. (The now-infamous training camp leggings also feature heavily.)



"Bumps racing in Oxford can be thought of as a ladder, the way to move up the ladder being to catch or ‘bump’ the crew in front. The starting order each year is determined by the finishing positions the previous year, with the Torpids and Eights competitions having separate ladders. The ladder has a number of tiers—divisions—with each tier consisting of 12 crews, plus the crew that finished top of the division below (called the ‘sandwich’ boat). The crew at the head of a division has to row the course and avoid being bumped; it then has the opportunity to move up a division by racing immediately afterwards as a sandwich boat at the bottom of the higher division. The first thing Hertford had to do on day one’s racing was row over at the head of Men’s Division 2, without being caught, thus earning the right to challenge for a place in Division 1.

"The full-length course on the Isis is approximately 1,500m, against the stream. But, for Bumps racing, only the bottom crew in a division is ever going to be able to row that full distance, since all the higher-placed crews start further up the course. The main features of the course are: Donnington Bridge, about 30 strokes into the race from where the leading crew actually starts; and the Gut, quite a severe s-bend a further minute or so into the race, where the river narrows and it is very easy to take the wrong line. Not surprisingly, a lot of the action takes place on this stretch of the course and it is quite common to see coxswains mis-judge the line and plough straight into the bank. Suffice it to say that the College boatmen are kept quite busy during both Torpids and Eights."



"Each boat is started from a rope 50 feet in length (known as a bungline), which has to be held until the start by the coxswain, the other end of the rope being fastened to a starting post on the towpath. With each starting post being 130 feet apart, a crew has to make up some two and a half lengths, rowing in the wash of the crews it is chasing to catch and bump the crew in front. So, in order to make a bump you have to be significantly faster than the crew you are chasing, and the crews at the top of each division (including the Head of the River crew) also have the advantage of racing in clean water.

"As well as the coxswain holding onto the bungline for the start, crews are kept in place against the stream by a boatman in charge of ‘poling off’. That person uses a 15-foot long, wooden pole to hold the shell in place and then to clear the bungline from the water once the race has started and the coxswain has thrown it aside. The whole process of marshalling and getting attached to the bungline is made more nerve-racking by a series of guns. The five-minute gun is fired, not surprisingly, five minutes before the race is due to start, followed by the one-minute gun, and then the start itself. To further ratchet up the tension, crews will usually have a coach on the bank alongside them giving them a countdown in the final minute.

"By the time the start actually comes, the adrenaline is well and truly pumping. Coaches usually cycle alongside their crews and will often signal the distance still be made up by use of a whistle (systems vary, but a common one is one whistle for half-a-length to go, two whistles for a quarter-length to go and then continuous for a canvas and overlap). Klaxons are used by marshals to stop racing in the event of the fairly regular pile-ups that take place, especially in the lower divisions. Fortunately for the Hertford men none of their races were klaxoned off.



"If you catch the crew in front and a bump is verified by an accompanying umpire (either actual contact, or a concession by the bumped crew’s coxswain), the crews involved swap places on the ladder for the next day’s racing. While members of the University squads do not compete in Torpids, the main difference in racing between Torpids and Eights is that in Torpids you only stop before the finish line if you make a bump, whereas in Eights both crews involved in a bump drop out. Make a bump on each of the four days and a crew is awarded its blades (i.e., the right to purchase a decorated oar celebrating the achievement). The crew right at the top of the ladder is the Head of the River and also is awarded blades as well as winning an impressive piece of silverware for the year.

"Together, the videos give a good impression of what Bumps racing is like for those who haven’t experienced this unique variety of rowing competition. There is nothing quite as terrifying as sitting on the bung line, with the seconds ticking down in the final minute before the start, waiting for a small cannon to fire. And you then actually try to hit the crew in front…I really miss it!"

Thanks very much to Duncan for the background on this unique and interesting form of racing, and congrats to Hertford for a successful 2015 campaign at Torpids, when the women's eight also won their blades! There's more background on the rules of racing via the Oxford University Rowing Clubs society website, and you can follow Hertford College Boat Club via Twitter: @HECBC.

-RR

Popular posts from this blog

The 30 Best Rowing Coaches of All Time, Part 3: The Top 10

Image
The top 10 best rowing coaches, including guess who (Photo © Iain Weir / Rowing Photography ) It's time for the third and final part of our 3-part series on the best of the best in the rowing coaching ranks. These coaches not only command respect based on performance, but have also shown the ability to adapt to new circumstances, build dynasties, and ultimately help shape the trajectory of rowing as a sport. Honestly, it would be easy to extend this series into 10 more posts... But we wouldn't do that to you. As we've said before, the hope is that the following may serve to educate and spark discussion, as both an appreciation of history and of the coaching craft. Also note: As we stated in Part 1 and Part 2 of this series, there are few women in this list, but that is a reflection of a general underrepresentation of women in the head coaching ranks in our sport—and indeed (as has been well documented ) a growing number of NCAA sports in the United States.
Read more

"I Row Crew" — Rowing in 'The Social Network'

Image
Like many of the rowing faithful, I've been keeping up with the saga penned by Dan Boyne about the filming of the rowing scenes in David Fincher and Aaron Sorkin's The Social Network , and I must say I had high hopes going into the film. The first problem I encountered: the phrase, "I row crew." It was uttered so many times before anyone "rowed crew" on the water that I had trouble buying any of it later. It's understandable that the character of Mark Zuckerberg makes that mistake, since he has no idea about the sport. But when the Winklevoss twins themselves utter the phrase several times, one begins to wonder where Boyne was when these lines were not being chopped or changed. Seriously, who says that? As far as the actual rowing goes, the first scene, which has the twins out training in a pair along with the rest of the Harvard squad, is not all bad — it just ends that way. The line, "Those guys are freakin' fast" is certainly every b
Read more

RR Interview: Nick Trojan's New Feature on Yale Men's Rowing

Image
Nick Trojan's latest feature documentary is twice as long as his previous work—but leaves you wanting more, just the same.  There’s a new feature in Nick Trojan’s series, taking an inside look at top-tier college rowing programs in the US. This time, Trojan focused his project on Yale and the legendary coach Steve Gladstone, blending outstanding camerawork with one of rowing’s most compelling stories.  Having uploaded the video to YouTube only two weeks ago, it’s already approaching 70k views. And for good reason.  RR sat down recently to talk through it all with Trojan in an exclusive interview, from origins to development and finally a finished product—as well as what might come next. Here’s what we learned. Navigating shifting waters Elite rower turned filmmaker Nick Trojan’s new feature, titled simply, “Yale Men’s Rowing,” was years in the making.  “The initial idea was to do the same kind of rinse-and-repeat that we had done with Harvard and Cal,” Trojan says, “but I think wha
Read more

Video Of The Week: Holland Beker 2013

This week's video comes to us from the Bosbaan, where the 2013 Holland Beker saw truly elite, international competition over the weekend. Perhaps the most outstanding racing came in the women's single, where the A Final closely mirrored a world championship or Olympic final in recent years—the lineup included two-time Olympic champ Ekaterina Karsten of Belarus, Kim Crow of Australia, New Zealand's Emma Twigg , reigning Olympic champion Mirka Knapkova of the Czech Republic, another two-time Olympic champion (albeit in the women's eight) in Eleanor Logan , and 2012 Olympic bronze medalist (also in the eight) Chantal Achterberg of Holland. As it turned out, the final was a wire-to-wire victory for Kim Crow, who looks to be on top form and may be the athlete to beat in this event for the foreseeable future, holding off both Karsten and Twigg in the closing stretch, with Knapkova finishing fourth. Elle Logan had another solid race in a great field, finishing just over
Read more

Best Rowing Drills: 5 Favorites of Olympic Champion Esther Lofgren

Image
Lofgren training in the single (Photo courtesy of Esther Lofgren) Olympic gold medalist Esther Lofgren is no stranger to success on the water. In addition to her podium-topping performance with the U.S. women's eight in London, Lofgren also won two world titles (2010, 2011), with her first international medal—a bronze—coming in the women's straight four in 2006. Here, Lofgren shares some insight into the drills that have helped her progress technically along the way.
Read more