Boats
The very earliest races were informal events between working watermen who raced in their everyday work boat or wherry. These rowing boats were used to carry passengers and goods from one part of the river to another. As racing became more formalised the work boats were superseded by specialist racing craft. Several technical developments assisted in this transformation from the job of waterman to the sport of rowing. These were;
(1) the development of light weight boats built solely for racing.
(2) the outrigger which placed the oar’s pivot point outside the boat allowing for more leverage.
(3) the swivelling rowlock, and
(4) the sliding seat which also allowed for more oar movement. These developments greatly increased the average speed of racing. Generally in contemporary reports these types of boats were referred to as “outriggers,” “best and best,” or “wager boats.”
Read more about this topic: World Sculling Championship
Famous quotes containing the word boats:
“Fortune brings in some boats that are not steer’d.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“The frowsy sponge boats keep coming in
with the obliging air of retrievers,”
—Elizabeth Bishop (1911–1979)
“Three miles long and two streets wide, the town curls around the bay ... a gaudy run with Mediterranean splashes of color, crowded steep-pitched roofs, fishing piers and fishing boats whose stench of mackerel and gasoline is as aphrodisiac to the sensuous nose as the clean bar-whisky smell of a nightclub where call girls congregate.”
—Norman Mailer (b. 1923)