Styles of rowing
We are now crusing along with some welcome cloud cover which is keeping the tempature at a level which is very conducive to rowing.
This morning Al took the plunge over the side to give the hull a scrub and insure there is not too much build up of weed. I jumped in behind him to inspect the steering and to take some video footage of him working from under the water.
The sensation of swimming in the ocean over 1000 miles from the nearest land is a strange one. It feels a little like i emagine a spaceman would feel when taking a space walk, everything he needs to survive is on his ship, to loose contact with his ship is to be in a very bad place indeed, that being said there was no wind and little current so while sminning away from the boat to get a distance shot of the whole boat and the background had little risk.
When i returned to the boat i swam under the hull to rejoin Al grabbing his leg for a joke...(I am not sure he found it all that funny!)
We both climbed out and poored fresh water over ourselves. It is a really wonderful feeling to stretch your muscles out with a swim then clean off all the grime of suncream, sweat and general build up of a weeks rowing.
While we are rowing we tend to have three main styles of rowing:
1. very light to no wind (F1)
It is easy to estabilish a rethim but as soon as the oar blade comes out of the water the boat effectivly stops. This makes is very hard work as there is no wind to help the boat carrey her momentium and is very frustrating, it feels like we are trying to pull her through thick custered.
In addition the wind is much more varioable in direction so when it moves to the West our rowing only keeps the boat still and stops it being blown back from where we came. It can be quite dihearning to row for 2 hours to find you have not actually traveled anywhere)
2. light to fresh breeze (F2 - 4 )
This is lovely rowing, we tend to have small waves rollowing along and the wind helps to keep the momentoum in the boat so as she keeps running when we take the blades out thus allowing a full and efficen stroke.
3. Strong breeze (F5 - 6+)
As the wind blids yet stronger the speed does not increase that much and the rowing requires more concentration. In Strong winds the main aim of rowing is to keep the boat running in the same direction as the swell and to NOT end up side on. This rowing can be great fun during the day and keeps you alert during the night time.
Finally we often get a swell merging from the side, this is very hard and frusrating. Each time you recover the oars they catch in the water and the handles bash against your legs (we all have lots of bruses on our legs from this happening). It also tends to send the boat rocking from side to side a great deal which is hard work.
We are all in very good spirates and all being well we should hit the half way point tomorow morning. When we do we have some sweets to celebrate the momentous occation. Our conversation now is nearly exclusively about food and what we are going to eat when we get back onto dry land.
We have heard about the other row boat which capsized 500 miles of Barbados two days ago and are very glad to hear that everyone was picked up OK. Our thoughts are with that crew and we wish them all the best.
Steve and the Tusmobile crew.
