A wider span

Romana was on the single today and she complained it is rigged too heavy. Also, my daughter Lenka will row on it.

So when I arrived at the rowing club I took a rigging hour. Increased the span from 158.5cm to 160cm, leaving scull length and inboard the same. Lowered the oarlocks by 5mm.

Did 16km of steady state today. 6km with an inboard of 89cm (using the Concept2 orange clams), the rest with an inboard of 88.5cm. The 89cm inboard corresponds to the overlap I used to row with. The 88.5cm inboard is the gearing I used to row with.

The idea is that the 89cm setting is for the girls and for me in headwind.

I did most of it at 20spm, except for 2 sets of 20 strokes >30spm, one of each with each setting. On feel, I liked the heavier gearing more.

Here are the heart rate and spm graphs for the two parts of the row:

The differences are really small. Still I will keep rowing at an inboard of 88.5cm, unless there is heavy headwind.

On the last 2km, rowing back to the club, I noticed an armada of 3 singles, 1 double and a coxed quad coming from our club. Our 13/14 year old training had begun.

I decided to hug the shore and avoid a collision course, but suddenly the coxed quad began to drift towards the shore.

I corrected my course and rowed between the boats. Then I noticed my son Robin (8 years) was coxing the coxed quad of 14 year old girls. He was lying in the front, coxing, waving at me and generally offsetting the balance of the boat.

A fun moment. Not sure if the girls appreciated it. But Robin is hooked on coxing now.