THE SPORT OF ROWING of his years.”2715 Just as with his teammates, Ulbrickson at Washington and Bolles at Harvard, the Sanford version of the 2nd Generation Conibear Stroke evolved over the decades. Layback was avoided, and ratings were kept low, and so the quest for improvement was inevitably directed to the only remaining channel, to aggressive pullthroughs. Nevertheless, ten years after Sanford came to Cornell, his crews still rowed in a manner with which Al Ulbrickson would have been very comfortable. After World War II, the IRA Regatta did not resume immediately. In 1946, the “Lake Washington Regatta” was held in its place. Washington, Cornell, Wisconsin, Harvard, M.I.T., California, Rutgers and British Columbia participated. Sanford’s Cornell crew won. The photo of members of the winning crew on the previous page caught them at mid-drive, halfway through their leg, back and arm motions, comparable to a similar picture of Rod Johnson of the 1949 Washington crew in Chapter 59. Von Wrangell recalls the technique he was taught: “Coach Sanford took a very powerful drive for granted. To him, that was an absolute requirement and a given for any man whom he placed in the Varsity boat. “He then emphasized a quick release and recovery out of bow, with the key element of a decelerating slide arriving most gently and ‘reverently’ at the stops just in time for the next catch. “‘Many’s the race that has been won on the recovery, not the drive,’ he used to say. 2715 von Wrangell, personal correspondence, 2005 Seattle Post-Intelligencer Cornell celebrating their Lake Washington Regatta victory. Visible nearest camera: 4-man Henry Parker. In background: 5-man Wilbur Gundlach, 7-man and Commodore Charles von Wrangell. Coxswain: Lloyd Conable “When we could put those two major elements together – the all-powerful drive and the graceful, fully controlled, decelerating slide on the recovery – we soon found ourselves in a magical sort of reverie in which we were each working like all get- out, but somehow feeling it was easy. “We felt as if our shell were flying or gliding over the water, not in the water. When achieving that state, we could go on forever. “We used to call that ‘swinging.’2716 We could not reach that state every day, but in ‘47 and especially in ‘48 we achieved it more frequently, and it showed in our races. “I’ve watched countless races in recent years, and seen some films as well, and I’ve consistently seen the stroke-man’s oar enter the water just inches past the perimeter of the 2-man’s puddle, and many times entering the water right in the middle of the puddle. When we rowed 32 and were 2716 See Chapter 164. 746
