THE SPORT OF ROWING to spoil beginning and to weaken the entire stroke.”888 Fairbairn: “I believe the right thing is to let the shoulders reach well and naturally forward, and during the stroke let them be rowed back naturally. “Trying to make the shoulder-blades meet at the finish encourages the action. By this drawing movement of the shoulders, one can get a foot more reach and apply the weight a foot longer.”889 Jesus Bell-Note English Orthodoxy prescribed a “lightning-drop” vertical entry, as did most 19th Century coaches. Warre: “The hands must be raised sharply, and the blade of the oar brought to its full depth at once.”890 Fairbairn disagreed. “If the blade is dropped in, it backwaters at the pace the boat is running. If it ‘backsplashes in,’ it backwaters even more.”891 Instead, Fairbairn prescribed “a running hit,”892 the so-called Jesus Bell-Note. “The oar must be rowed in, and as it hits the water it must be moving faster than the boat is running past the water, to generate any power.”893 If done smartly, the diagonal path of the lower edge of the blade would carve a hole in the water behind it as it entered. When that hole collapsed against the back of the blade, one would hear a clapping sound that reminded some of the pealing of a church bell. Steve called this “a true bell-note as the blade strikes the water.”894 (Actually, it was the water striking the blade.) 888 Rowe & Pitman, p. 23 889 Fairbairn On Rowing, p. 164 890 Qtd. by Haig-Thomas and Nicholson, p. 31 891 Fairbairn On Rowing, pp. 133-4 892 Burnell, Swing, p. 53 893 Fairbairn On Rowing, p. 255 894 Ibid, p. 259 This phenomenon had been noticed and admired much earlier in rowing history, though it was given a less romantic name. Brickwood, 1866: “If they all get hold of the water fairly and at once, the peculiar noise appertaining to this catch, which is like the sound produced by a stone falling perpendicularly into the water after being thrown up into the air – a rotten egg,895 as it is called – will be distinctly audible some distance off.”896 In 1950, future coach Mike Spracklen897 started rowing at Marlow Rowing Club, on the Thames near Henley. “What the coaches taught me at Marlow was that if you want to hit something hard, you get a run at it, and that’s what Steve Fairbairn taught. “People talk about the Steve Fairbairn Bell-Note. They drove the blade into the water from high. They oversquared the blade to stop it diving, and as the blade went into the water and traveled through, it made a sound like a bell-note. “It’s got to be at the right depth and the right speed to do it. It was a very precise, very accurate, very good movement. I’m sure we’ve all heard about a bell-note, but I’ve not coached or seen anyone able to do it at race pace. “Steve Fairbairn‘s guys did it, and the way they did it was to drive in from behind, and by doing that, they were able to get hold of it.”898 One can reproduce this sound today, most easily with a little experimentation while the boat is at rest. Once you hear it for the first time, you will immediately recognize it. 895 in American children’s pool-side slang, a can-opener. 896 Brickwood, p. 55 897 See Chapters 130, 149, 151 and 159. 898 Spracklen, RCA Coaches’ Conference, 2005 234
