THE SPORT OF ROWING commitment to do something, and I plunged into my reserve mind. We shaped the boat. Fifer and Hecht were able to work out an integration of power, and the boat began to deliver pace. “The boat had to be honed together, and I had both to work with the boat and any lack of discipline in the crew. “A lot of it was George Pocock himself. He was involved in our process. He built several boats during that time. We’d provide George with continual feedback about the boat performance, and he would guide our improvement . . . our tweaks. “He made changes to the design of the pair, and the changes were to widen the forward third of the hull to create a lifting surface [on the bottom] of the boat. That was part of the secret. It would lift in the bow, and when it lifted, it was substantially faster.”3210 Beggs is describing the Pocock “teardrop” hull, widest toward the bow and then tapering toward the stern. The intent was for the hull to rise up and plane across the water at speed. The teardrop configuration was most recognizable in pairs and singles but the shape was also used in fours and even eights. Joe Burk won the Diamond Sculls twice in a teardrop single.3211 The 1948 University of Washington Coxed-Four won Olympic Gold in a Pocock teardrop-shaped boat.3212 Beggs: “It felt really wonderful, because we were able to get the boat going . . . and when it was going appropriately, the boat had a lot of life to it. “George Pocock developed a model of racing boat that was so superior.”3213 Hecht: “Four weeks before the IRA and six weeks before the Olympic Trials, we shipped our pair off to the East Coast in a railway car that Ky Ebright, the Cal Coach, had hired to transport his boats. Fifer and I had no boat to row until we rendezvoused in the East. Fifer flew military air, Jimmy commercial air, and I drove solo to Syracuse . . . pre-freeway in a 1951 Chevrolet . . . sleeping in the back seat to save money. “Our hard-won conditioning drained away. “We spent two weeks in Syracuse in two-a-day workouts in 100-degree weather, the skin peeling off our soft hands, and then we moved down to Worcester, Massa- chusetts for the Trials. Unbelievable as it may seem today, we had our first pair-oared race ever in our heat at the Olympic Trials, defeating a previously unbeaten Navy Pair [this in the year of Rusty Callow’s Great Eight3214].”3215 Heat 1: 1 Fairmont R.A. 2 Detroit B.C. 3 Penn Heat 2: 1 Stanford 2 USNA 3 Union B.C. 8:24.0 8:29.8 8:34.2 8:19.0 n.t. n.t. “Navy’s strategy in the final was to go out as fast as they could, establish a lead and hold on. In fact, that was everybody’s strategy! We were all alone for the first 500, putting along at 30 before we finally caught one of the club boats. At 1,000, we passed the other. We moved the beat up a notch or two and at 1,500 reeled in Navy. At 1,750, we were by them . . . but fifteen strokes from the finish I caught a crab.”3216 The New York Times: “With less than a hundred meters to go, stroke Duvall Hecht caught a ‘crab,’ momentarily sending the 3210 Beggs, op. cit. 3211 See Chapter 58. 3212 See Chapter 61. 3213 Beggs, op. cit. 3214 See Chapter 64. 3215 Hecht, op. cit. 3216 Ibid. 898
