Caught In A Riptide

Yet another belated update on the crew's progress.  On Saturday 21st July we had our third outing in the gig and for the first time we made it out to sea, rather than being stuck in the estuary around Hayling Island.

As 21st July was the first Saturday of school holidays, traffic was horrendous.  It's a shame we didn't have the foresight to see that coming.  The crew arrived at Hayling Island looking frazzled after such a long drive.  Everyone only just arrived in time to get changed and almost immediately jump into the boat for our four hour row.  We were also a man down, as Dennis was ill with a chest infection and under Doctor's orders not to do strenuous exercise.

One of our goals for our third outing was to try out possible crew positions for the final row and to practise change overs without bringing the boat to a stop.  We decided that Steve, Jason and Gary would make up the bow team and that the three of them would have to row the entire four hours.  Myself, Richard, Andy and Jonathan made up the stern team, with each taking on stroke and cox duties.

We also found ourselves setting off in the boat without having a rowing coach on board.  On this trip we'd be joined by a different coach, Steve Woods, but he would be alongside us in a separate rib.  To be left to our own devices in the boat felt like we'd made massive progress and had a lot more responsibility on our shoulders.  Everyone seemed to step up their game accordingly.  On the previous rowing trip it took several minutes for everyone to find the rhythm and to be able to row in time with the stroke.  On this occasion everything seemed to click from the first paddle.  Previously backing down (rowing backwards) to get away from the jetty was a real mess, but this time we were organised and the boat slipped away from the jetty with ease.

Once we were out of the marina and rowing on the wide estuary heading out to sea we made rapid progress, which was helped by the falling tide.  We had great weather and many other people were making the most of it.  We found ourselves sharing water with a huge fleet of sailing ships, which meant the cox had to be extra alert.  Go from the calm of the estuary to wide open sea was like stepping through a door to a different world.  The waves weren't as choppy as our previous trip, but the boat was still lifted and rocked by fairly big waves.  However, we managed to continue to row in time with stroke and make good progress.  This would change we had to turn back for home.



From stroke to bow: Jonathan, Alan, Andy, Gary, Jason and Steve.


We had headed out to sea directly away from Hayling Island.  The return row to the island was easy enough, but as we approached the mouth of the estuary it became harder and harder to make progress.  At the time I was sat in the cox seat and I found myself shouting at the crew to dig in and row hard in order to make some progress.  I could see two buoys that we were aiming for, and I could also see the full force of the water coming out of the estuary and spilling around and over the buoys with great force.  It was no wonder that rowing had suddenly become so hard.  Apparently we were rowing against a riptide.  I'm no expert but we were later told that certain atmospheric conditions can have an effect on the tide and increase it's force.  To give you some idea of the effect of the tide, for most of the row we made progress at a rate of 1 mile for every 12 minutes.  On the approach to the mouth of the estuary it took us an hour to cover 1 mile.  In the end our support boat had to come to our rescue and tow us beyond the worst of the tidal current.  We weren't the only boat in trouble, even some of the sail boats had to get a motorised tow back to harbour.

After a short tow we were cut loose and left to our own devices again.  Everyone dug in and we rowed back to harbour at a fairly fast pace.  Jason was pretty wrecked from the previous hard work, so we gave him an unplanned turn in the cox seat.  Every time someone had to change seats in the boat we managed to keep the boat moving forward by making sure that at least two people were rowing.  With Jason in the cox seat we put in short bursts of hard efforts on our return trip.  We also rowed the very last kilometre flat out, which was a great moral boost at the end of a hard four hour sea row.

Once back on dry land everyone was elated by the experience we'd gained from the trip.  It was hard to believe that this was only our third time in the boat as a unified crew.  Although everyone had just put in an awesome level of work, energy levels were high.  In fact the crew was almost unrecognisable from the travel weary car drivers and passengers who arrived at the marina earlier that day.

Since our last row fitness training has continued with running and kettlebell workouts.  We've been missing out on group ergo sessions, but most of the crew are doing this by themselves.  As we're now into August many people are away on holidays and group training sessions are becoming more sparse.  But this will change once we head into September and have just one month to our crossing.