Word: shellful
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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Perhaps to the outsider, rowing seems like a basically simple form of exercise, calling for nothing more than a plethora of muscle, especially between the ears. This viewpoint could not be more wrong. Propelling the $2000 instrument known as a shell through the water with any degree of success calls for more skill and coordination than the casual observer could possibly realize...
...recovery is no simple matter. The oars must leave the water together, a snap of the wrists must feather them, and the crewmen must slide their bodies forward and their oars back into position again with a smooth, even motion that does not check the run of the shell. If this much is accomplished successfully the whole cycle begins again, and each man must concentrate on doing exactly the same thing in the same way once more--about 300 time in a mile-and-three-quarters race, or about 700 times in the classic four-mile Yale race...
Weight is not overly important to Tom, although rough weather favors the heavy crew. As for age, Bolles feels that an oarsman hits his physical peak in his early to mid twenties, although the presence of 18-year-old Ted Anderson in this year's shell proves that this rule is like-wise inflexible...
...only does this give the shell a long, fast run between strokes, but it lets the crew pause before the catch rather than at the end of the pull, thereby reducing the possibility of catching a crab...
...takes several minutes to back all the shells up to the stakeboats (anchored rowboats containing a man who holds the stern of the shell until the start) and once this is accomplished there is more delay while the crewmen pool off their sweaters...