Strokes Per Minute (SPM) or Rating
Almost all modern cox boxes have a liquid crystal display, showing the strokes per minute (SPM). On most Cox box systems, a magnet is positioned under the stroke man's seat. In bowloaded boats, the magnet is placed under the bow man's seat. As the rower moves up the slide (moving forward to prepare for the next stroke), a measurement is taken, and fed to the cox box. The stroke seat (first rower in the stern) sets the rate of rowing for the whole crew so this is very important. The Cox Box also usually features a timer which can be stopped, cleared, and reset, along with a stroke counter. For early morning or late evening rows, the Cox Box is also equipped with a backlight.
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Famous quotes containing the words strokes and/or minute:
“While we were thus engaged in the twilight, we heard faintly, from far down the stream, what sounded like two strokes of a woodchopper’s axe, echoing dully through the grim solitude.... When we told Joe of this, he exclaimed, “By George, I’ll bet that was a moose! They make a noise like that.” These sounds affected us strangely, and by their very resemblance to a familiar one, where they probably had so different an origin, enhanced the impression of solitude and wildness.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“One writes of scars healed, a loose parallel to the pathology of the skin, but there is no such thing in the life of an individual. There are open wounds, shrunk sometimes to the size of a pin-prick but wounds still. The marks of suffering are more comparable to the loss of a finger, or the sight of an eye. We may not miss them, either, for one minute in a year, but if we should there is nothing to be done about it.”
—F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940)