Daniel (one of my twins) has now taken up rowing at school (Glendowie College in Auckland, NZ) and, I'm glad to say loves it. As a result of that I'm now getting involved with coaching the novices. Rowing here is somewhat different from the Avon. We row on the Tamaki estuary which has a tidal range of 3 metres so can be fun! This morning was low tide so one has to squelch through the mud to launch. Next week everyone is off to Lake Karapiro (home of the 2010 World Championships) for camp. Most of the New Zealand rowers will be back from Germany and getting ready for the Olympics there, so it's a change to see some good quality rowing.
Life here is going well, socially and academically, and with the rowing. I am rowing with the college which is fun. We row at Radley which is great; it's an empty stretch of water but the downside is that it is a 20-30 min cycle ride away. At the moment the rowing is in a squad system; there are about 20 of us (not including the novice boats) and we have quite a range of fitness and experience. Magdalen is a good college to be at as far as rowing is concerned; at the moment we are 1st in summer VIIIs and about 3rd in Torpids I think.
I'm not entirely sure what I had expected the river at Cambridge to be like but I guess it was not what I found very early on a cold Wednesday morning. Having found out I had experience, the Captain of Boats was very keen to get me in a boat and I'm very glad now of that experience especially on the Avon. I think I had assumed that, given that rowing is such a tradition here, they would have a very wide river, but I was wrong. The Cam has more bends and in places incredibly narrower than I had ever expected. In this respect my Monkton training, where I learnt to cox on a stretch of river that was far from straight, was invaluable! However the volume of boats was not something I had been prepared for! In fact I was told the other day that there are more rowers on the Cam then there are in the whole of New Zealand. I'm not sure how true this is but it wouldn't surprise me.
Frequently at 8.30 in the morning with lectures at 9 looming I have ended up in a long queue of crews all trying to get into their respective boathouses. At such times it is only possible to row for a few strokes before having to stop again. And it is not just other rowers, fishermen and barges are here in abundance!
All this was particularly true this morning. A thick fog was covering the river and at times I could see no more than about 4-5 boat lengths in front of me. An interesting, slightly scary experience!
However I'm very much looking forward to the coming year and the various races that I have been told about, especially bumps, sound like some of the most exciting coxing I will ever do.
In the final of the P.E. Cup this year at Henley, Patrick Lapage, son of Philip Lapage, was rowing in the winning Shrewsbury crew which beat a Canadian eight. It took me right back to the Olympics of 1948 when the G.B. VIII beat the Canadians in the semi-final. What is probably less well-known is that the Leander (pencil) blades were shaved down because of a very strong head wind. "You couldn't do that to-day," was a towpath comment last week.
As well as learning the Monkton style of rowing when I was at school and enjoying a lot of success, the subliminal message conveyed by the coaches as they developed the crews has stood me in great stead in my own career. It was only as I started to teach others myself, and to coach, and to Housemaster that I really appreciated the generosity, pastoral care and concern for others that was shown to me and the crews I was in by the coaches. The coaches also imparted the skills of racing, winning and losing with good grace. Good life skills indeed. I only hope that I have managed to pass on some of the same to my own charges!