Part 14

I may premise that Cambridge has an important advantage over Oxford in the fact that she has a far larger number of men to choose from in selecting a university crew. It may seem to many, at first sight, that as good a crew might well be selected from three hundred as from five hundred boating-men; because it is not to be supposed that either number would supply many more than eight first-rate oarsmen. But it must be remembered that there are first-rate oarsmen _and_ first-rate oarsmen. The unpractised eye may detect very little difference between the best and the worst oarsmen in such crews as Oxford and Cambridge yearly send to contend for the blue-riband of the river. But differences exist; and if the best man of the crew were replaced by one equal in rowing ability to the worst, or _vice versâ_, an important difference would be observed in the time of rowing over the racing course, under similar conditions of wind, tide, and so forth. Accordingly, a large field for the selection of the men is a most important advantage. Taking, for instance, the five hundred rowing men of Cambridge and dividing them into two sets--one of three hundred men, corresponding to the three hundred rowing men of Oxford, and the other of two hundred men--we see that the first set ought to supply a crew strong enough to meet Oxford, and the second a crew nearly as strong. Now, if the best men of the two Cambridge crews thus supposed to be formed are combined--say five taken from the first and three from the second, all the inferior men being struck out--a far stronger crew than either of the others would undoubtedly be formed.

So that if Cambridge were generally the winner in these contests, the Oxonians would be able to account for their want of success in a sufficiently satisfactory manner. The successive defeats sustained by the Cambridge crews in 1861-69 are therefore so much the less readily explained as due to mere accident, by which of course I mean simply such an accidental circumstance as that better oarsmen chanced to be at Oxford than at Cambridge in these years, not to accident occurring in the race itself.

Several reasons were assigned from time to time for the repeated victories of Oxford. Some of these may conveniently be examined here, before discussing what I take to be the true explanation.

Some writers in the papers advanced the general proposition that Oxford men are as a rule stronger and more enduring than Cambridge men. They did not tell us why this should be the case--to what peculiar influences it was due that the more powerful and energetic of our English youth should go to one university rather than the other. No evidence of this peculiarity could be found in the university athletic sports, in which success was, as it has since been, very equally divided. And what made the theory the less satisfactory was the circumstance that it afforded no explanation of the early triumphs of the Cantabs, who won seven of the nine races they rowed against Oxford. Of these races five were rowed from Westminster to Putney, a course two miles longer than the present course from Putney to Mortlake. A race over such a course and in the heavier old-fashioned racing-boats was a sufficient test of strength and endurance; yet the Cambridge men managed to win four out of these five events, and that not by a few seconds, but in three instances by upwards of a minute. If there were any reason for conceiving that Oxonians were as a rule stronger than Cantabs in the years 1861-69, there is at least no reason for conceiving that any change can have taken place in the time between the earlier races and that during which Oxford won so persistently. And as the earlier races show no traces of any difference such as was insisted upon by many journalists in the latter part of the period of the Oxford successes, we may reasonably conclude that the difference had no real existence.

Another theory resembling the preceding was also often urged. It was said repeatedly in the papers that Cambridge traditions encouraged a light flashy stroke, pretty to look at but not effective; that again, Cambridge rowed the first part of the course well but exhausted themselves before the conclusion of the race, through their over-anxiety to get the advantage of their opponents in the beginning of the contest. Critics undertook to say that the Oxford men 'rowed within themselves' at first, reserving their strength for the last mile or two of the course. Now, it will presently appear that there does exist in a certain peculiarity of what may justly be called the Cambridge style, a true cause for want of success, and even for such a repeated series of defeats as the light-blue flag sustained in 1868-69. But the Cambridge style rowed during these years was very far from being a flashy style. On the contrary, the old Cambridge style, which is still too often seen in College contests, and has within the last four years been seen on the Thames, involves the rowing of a longer stroke than _seems_ to be rowed in the true Oxford style. Oxford rowing is pre-eminently lively. Anyone who had been at the pains to time the strokes of the Oxford and Cambridge crews during the years 1861-69, would have been able at once to dispose of the notion that Cambridge men row the more rapid stroke. In these nine races, as in the practice preceding them, the Oxford crew often took forty-four strokes per minute. Especially did they rise to this swift stroke in some of those grand spurts which so often carried the dark-blue flag in front. I do not remember that the Cambridge crews ever went beyond forty-two strokes per minute. Then again as to starting early and being quickly spent, a good deal of nonsense was written. In some of the later contests of the series 1861-69, indeed, the Cambridge crews, urged by the thought of numerous past defeats, made unduly exhausting efforts in the earlier part of the race. But nothing was done in this way which would have caused the loss of the race if the Cambridge crew had really had it in them to win. If the better of two crews puts on rather too much steam at first, they draw so quickly ahead that they soon begin to feel that they have the race in hand, and so proceed to take matters more steadily. In such powerful and well-trained crews as both universities usually send to the contest, very little harm is done by varying the order of the work a little--rowing hard at first and steadily afterwards, or _vice versâ_. It is easy for lookers-on, most of whom have never taken part in a boat-race, to theorise on these matters. But those who know what boat racing is (as distinguished, be it noticed, from most contests of speed) know that the better boat is almost sure to win in whatever way the stroke may set them their work. A good crew, unlike a good horse, requires no jockeying.

The difference of the rivers Cam and Isis has been urged as a sufficient reason for inferiority on the part of the Cambridge crews. That the difference used to tell unfavourably upon the chances of the light blue flag before the river had been widened and the railway bridge modified, and that even now the Cambridge crews would not be all the better for a better river to practice on, cannot be denied. But I question whether even before the widening of the river, this particular cause sufficed to counterbalance the advantage of the Cantabs in point of numbers. Nor do I think that those who urged the inferiority of the Cambridge river have recognised the principal disadvantage which it entailed upon the light-blue oarsmen.

The first circumstance to be noticed, in this connection, is the difference in the conditions under which racing-boats were and are steered along the two rivers. A Cambridge coxswain has in some respects an easier, in others a more difficult task than the Oxonian. In the first place, he has very little choice as to the course along which he shall take his boat. All he has to do is to steer as closely round each corner as possible; and the narrowness of the river renders it difficult for him to fall into any error in running a straight line from corner to corner. The Oxonian coxswain, on the other hand, requires to be more carefully on the watch lest he should suffer his boat to diverge from the just course, which is far less obvious on the wider Isis than on the Cam. But although the Cambridge coxswain has the shores of the river close to him on either hand, and can thus never be at a loss as to his just course, yet to maintain this obvious course he has to be continually moving the rudder-lines. In fact, there are some 'eights' which steer so ill that it is no easy matter to keep them from the shores when the crew are sending them along at racing speed. In rounding the three great corners which have to be passed in the ordinary racing-course at Cambridge--viz., First Post Corner, Grassy Corner, and Ditton Corner--the rudder has to be made use of in a much more decided manner than in the straighter course along which the Oxford racing eights have to travel. I have seen the water bubbling over the rudder of a racing eight, as she rounded Grassy Corner, in a manner which showed clearly enough how her 'way' must have been checked; yet, probably, if the rudder-lines had been relaxed for a moment, the ill-steering craft would have gone irretrievably out of her course, and been presently stranded on the farther bank. And even eights which steer well had to be very carefully handled along the narrow and winding ditch which we Cantabs used to call 'the river.'

A more serious disadvantage, so far as the prospects of University Boats were concerned, lay in the circumstance that there was no part of the Cam (within easy reach, at least, of Cambridge) along which the crew could row without a break, for four or five miles, as they had to do in the actual encounter with the Oxford boat. The whole range of the river between the locks next below Cambridge and Bait's Bite Locks, is somewhat under four miles and a half. But about a mile and a quarter from Bait's Bite sluice, the railway-bridge crosses the river, and until a few years ago, the supports of this bridge divided the river into three parts. There was in my time a vague tradition that the University Eight had once or twice been steered through the widest of these passages without stopping; but I doubt much whether there could have been any truth in the story. Certainly no coxswain in my time at Cambridge ever achieved the feat, nor could it be safely attempted even by the most skilful steersman. The consequence was that there was a break in the long course which took away all its value as a preparation for the actual race. It may seem to the uninitiated a trifling matter that a crew should get a few seconds of rest in so long a pull. But those who know what racing is, are aware that the slightest break--one stroke even, shirked--is an immense relief to the tugging oarsman.

Beyond Bait's Bite Locks there is a three-and-a-half-miles course, liable to be broken by the manoeuvres of a floating bridge or ferry boat opposite Clayhithe. Next comes another short course extending to Upware. And lastly from Upware to Ely there is a fine five-and-a-half-miles course, considerably wider than the Cam, and presenting several splendid reaches. To this course the Cambridge men used to betake themselves four or five times in the course of their preparation for the great race. But a course so far removed from the university itself was clearly far less advantageous than the convenient Oxford long course, extending from the ferry at Christ Church meadows to Newnham. Still, annoying as the want of a convenient long-course must be considered, I cannot attribute the long succession of Cambridge defeats in 1861-69 to such a cause as this. It is true that before the railway-bridge was built, the Cambridge crew used generally to win, and that since it has been so far modified as not to interfere with the passage of a racing eight, they have again been successful, whereas, while the supports of the bridge checked them midway on their course, they were less fortunate. But to connect these circumstances as cause and effect, would be as unsafe as the theory of the Margate fishermen who ascribed the Goodwin Sands to the building of the Reculvers.

It has been said that the shallowness of the Cam affects the style of Cambridge oarsmen. This seems to me a fanciful theory. Occasionally in the course of a race close steering round one or other of the sharper corners might permit the oarsmen to 'feel the bottom,' for two or three strokes; but during all the rest of the course the oars find plenty of water to take good hold of. The Cam was undoubtedly growing shallower for some time after 1860; and the change gave some degree of support to the theory that the peculiarities of the Cambridge style were due to the peculiarities of the Cambridge river. But I believe the notion was a wholly mistaken one; and I am confirmed in this belief by noticing that the Cambridge style from 1860 to 1869 was in all essential respects, and especially in that feature which I shall presently describe as its radical and fatal defect, the same precisely as it had been in earlier times when Cambridge was oftener successful than defeated.

I have heard Cambridge men say, indeed, that after rowing on the Cam they feel quite strange on Thames water. They feel, they say, as if the boat were running away with them. I have experienced the feeling myself, when rowing on the Thames anywhere below Teddington; but most markedly below Kew. It is not due, however, to the mere difference in the depth of the two streams, but mainly, if not wholly, to the circumstance that the lower part of the Thames is a tidal river. It is not noticeable above Teddington, save (in a somewhat modified form) in those portions of the river called 'races,' where the stream runs with unusual rapidity. I should suppose that Oxonians felt the influence of this peculiarity fully as much as Cambridge oarsmen do; in fact, I know that this is the experience of some Oxonians, for they have told me as much.

I believe that the principal disadvantage which the narrowness of the Cam entailed upon boating-men at Cambridge, lay in the circumstance that Cambridge men never had an opportunity of rowing a level race. They had 'bumping races' for the college eights--as the Oxonians had--and time-races to decide between the merits of two or three boats, whereas at Oxford two boats could contend side by side. Thus it was to many Cambridge men a novel and somewhat disturbing experience to find themselves rowing close alongside of their opponents. It may seem fanciful to notice any disadvantage in such a matter as this; yet I believe that the matter was not a trifle. The excitement which men feel just before a race begins, and during the first half-mile or so of its progress, is so intense that a small difference of this sort is apt to produce much more effect than might be expected. I think the somewhat flurried style in which the Cantabs were often observed to row the first half-mile of the great race might be partly ascribed to this cause. Of course, I am far from saying that if a Cambridge crew had been decidedly better than their opponents, the race could have been lost or even endangered from such a cause as this.

And now it remains that I should point out that peculiarity in what may be called the Cambridge style of rowing--though it is not now systematically adopted by Cambridge crews--to which the defeats of the light-blue flag in the years 1861-69 were I believe to be chiefly attributed.

It should be remembered that before we can recognise a peculiarity of style as the cause of a long series of defeats, it must be shown that the peculiarity is neither trifling nor accidental. There are peculiarities in rowing which have a very slight effect upon the speed with which the boat is propelled by the crew. Amongst these may be fairly included such points as the following:--the habit of throwing out the elbows just before feathering, feathering high or low, rowing short or long (a technical expression now commonly, though incorrectly, applied to the length of the stroke, but properly relating to the distance at which the stretcher or foot-board is placed from the seat), sitting high or low, and so on. All these peculiarities--of course within reasonable limits--are unimportant, save in so far as they indicate that the style of the stroke itself is faulty. Then again there are accidental peculiarities, which may be exceedingly important in themselves, but which yet produce only a transient influence, because they are personal peculiarities of such and such a stroke, and when he has left his university they remain no longer in vogue. As an illustration of this sort of peculiarity, I may notice the remarkably effective stroke rowed by Hall of Magdalen in the year 1858-60. There the radical defect of the Cambridge style was almost obliterated, and all the good points of that style were fully brought out. The result was that, out of three races rowed with Oxford, Cambridge won two, and though they lost the third, yet they lost it in such a manner as to obtain more credit than any winning race could have brought them. I refer to the memorable race of 1859, in which the Cambridge boat was, at starting, half full of water, and gradually filling as the race proceeded, sank about half-a-mile from the winning-post, being at the moment of sinking only four lengths behind Oxford, notwithstanding the tremendous difficulties under which the crew had all along been rowing.[13] Mr. Hall also rowed stroke in the great race with the famous London crew--Casamajor, Playford, the two Paynes, &c.--when Cambridge won by half a boat's length. We have, however, to inquire whether there is any point held to be essential by Cambridge oarsmen, which is sufficiently important and sufficiently faulty to account for the marked want of success which attended the light-blue flag in the years 1861-69. The following peculiarity appears to me to be precisely of such a character.

It was formerly held by nearly all the Cambridge oarsmen that 'the instant the oar touches the water' (I am quoting from a pamphlet called 'Principles of Rowing,' much read by rowing-men at Cambridge) 'the arms and body should begin to fall backwards, the former continuing at their full stretch till the back is perpendicular; they are then bent, the elbows being brought close past the sides,' etc. If a Cambridge oarsman broke this rule, so that his arms began to bend before his back was upright, he would be told that he was jerking. 'This is caused,' says our authority, 'by pulling the first part of the stroke with violence and not falling gradually backwards to finish it. The most muscular men are more than others guilty of it, because they trust too much to their arms, instead of making each part of the body do its proportionate quantity of work. It is most annoying to the rest of the crew, injures the uniform swing throughout the boat, and soon tires out the man himself, however strong he may be, because he is virtually rowing unsupported, and he has nearly the whole weight of the boat on his arms alone.'

I was myself trained to row the Cambridge style, and when I became captain of a boat-club, I was careful to inculcate this style on my crew, and on other crews which came more or less directly under my supervision. But I am convinced that the peculiarity so carefully enjoined in past time by the Cambridge club-captains, and still retained, is altogether erroneous for boats of the modern build. I first became aware that the Cambridge style is not the water-man's--and, therefore, presumably not the most effective--through practising in a racing-four with three of our most noted Thames watermen--the two Mackinnys, and Chitty of Richmond. They were then preparing for the Thames National Regatta, though not as a set crew. Accordingly the coxswain would frequently call upon us for a good lifting spurt of a quarter of a mile or so. During these spurts the coxswain was continually telling me that I was not keeping stroke, and I was sensible myself that something was going wrong. One who has taken part in boat-races very soon detects any irregularity in the rowing--by which I do not of course refer to so gross a defect as not keeping time. All the men of a crew may be keeping most perfect time, and may even present the appearance of keeping stroke together, and yet may not be feeling their work simultaneously. I was aware that something was going wrong, but I found it impossible, without abandoning the style of rowing in which I had been so carefully trained, to keep stroke with the rest of the crew. It seemed to me that they were doubling over their work, because while I was still swaying backwards they had reached the limit of their swing. Then they did not seem to me to feather with that lightning flash which the Cambridge style enjoins. Altogether, I left them after three or four long pulls with the impression that, though they might be very effective watermen, they had but a poor style.

Soon after, however, I had occasion to watch Oxford oarsmen at their work, and I found that they row in a style which, without being actually identical with that of the London waterman, resembles it in all essential respects. The moment the oar catches the water, the body is thrown back as in the Cambridge style, but the arms, instead of being kept straight, immediately begin to do their share of the work. The result is that when the body is upright the arms are already bent, and the stroke is finished when the body is very little beyond the perpendicular position.

Now let us compare the two strokes theoretically. In each stroke the body does a share of the work, and in the Cambridge stroke the body even seems to do more work than in the Oxford stroke, since it is swayed farther back. In each stroke, again, the arms do a share of the work, but in the Oxford stroke the work of the arms is distributed equally as a help to that of the body, whereas in the Cambridge stroke the work of the arms is all thrown upon the finish of the stroke. At first sight it seems to matter very little in what order the work is done, so long as the same amount of work is done in the same space of time. But here an important consideration has to be attended to.

There are two things which the oarsman does in whatever style he rows. He propels the boat along, by pressing the blade of his oar against the water as a fulcrum; but he also propels his oar more or less through the water. If instead of the actual state of things, the boat were to slide along an oiled groove in some solid substance, whose surface was so ridged that the oar could bear upon the ridges without any flexure, then indeed it would matter very little in what way the oar was pulled, so long as it was pulled through a good range in a short space of time. But the actual state of things being different, we have to inquire whether it is not possible that one style of rowing may serve more than another to make the slip of the oar through the water (a dead loss, be it remarked, so far as the propulsion of the boat is concerned) bear too large a proportion to the actual work done by the rower.