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Last week I had a problem...John and I have two Coxed Quads for each of our top two crews, Albano for the 2nd Crew and Corbervois for the 1st Crew. Corbervois is a carbon shell based on a lightweight coxless quad design and is about 2 or three seasons old, and Albano is the same shape, but made of kevlar honeycomb and a bit of carbon and is about 9 seasons old.
Camp last week saw our athletes race competitively against each other in these two boats, and John's 3rd Crew in Albano was out-performing my 1st Crew in Corbervois.
Holy crap... was all we could say.
The girls were complaining a bit about Corbervios sitting on stroke side (starboard side) during the pieces, and so the only thing that I could think of was that Albano was set up better than Corbs since John and myself had been going insane to make sure that we had selected girls for the 1st Crew that were superior than the 3rds on paper. So I spent about 5 hours on Saturday evening after we arrived back from camp running through Corbervois to try and get it set up at base (average) settings, and I was panicking before this morning's session about whether it would make a difference, or whether it would just make it worse.
I held my breath as I approached my crew sitting in Corbervois at the top of the lake after their warm-up. All of the girls kinda spoke in unison and I got pelted with a very shrieky, "Holy SHIT Matt...! Whatever you did... it's awesome!", and I almost fell out of the launch with relief.
We went on to have a great session, although the heights were a little high for my 5 foot 3 inch stroke. Those hours spent slaving away on a Saturday evening had really paid off... so with a bit of tweaking and some good luck, I should have the rig just right by Boat Race in 13 weeks time.
4 comments:
in the sesion when the 3rds beat the 1st's we swapped boats if you don't remember corectly and the 3rds beat the 1st twice in the 1st's boat i don't thnk the results were intierly based on settings...maybe it's just me but i belive in the mighty 3rds
I believe in you guys too... and I don't deny that you guys gave the other boats a few almighty thrashings during that outing. The point of that post was the settings though, and from where John and I were sitting, that was the problem with Corborvois. Some of the girls got off and mentioned the same problems as the 1sts had.
I remember asking John to keep the starting handicaps the same for the subsequent pieces so that we could see the relative speeds of the crews after we swapped boats... and although you guys held them off and beat them every piece, they were closer to you when they were in Albano.
How did Corbervois feel the other day at VLC?
.. at sa champs, none can blame the settings of a boat..can they ?
Of course they can! ... I've screwed up royally with settings at important regattas and have lost (or almost lost) races because of it. For example: at Champs in 2006 (2005/2006 Season), I forgot to tighten the top nuts on the stroke's seat in the JW2-. The nut came off at the 250m to go, and the girls barely held on to win that race. Again, at VLC Sprints in 2006, I forgot to cross the steering in the pair and we got beaten for the first and only time that season (denying the girls of their unbeaten season).
Rigging's all about making sure of everything, because while it doesn't necessarily win races for you, it will lose a race if you get it wrong.
Corbervois was set badly on camp... John and I have enough experience as coaches to see that and you guys did exceptionally well against the first crew and are still doing great... don't misunderstand me: I'm not making excuses for the firsts... you beat them on camp. Well done. But from where the coaches were sitting... we saw something wrong with Corbervois... even when you guys were using her.
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