High Performance Rowing

A Research Outlook using a Coaches Perspective

Christian Finnsgård

1, 2

and David McKenzie McGowan

Centre for Sports Technology, Department of Applied Physics, Chalmers University of Technology, Gothenburg, Sweden

SSPA Sweden AB, Research, Gothenburg, Sweden

Mölndals Rodd Klubb, Mölndal, Sweden

Keywords: Rowing, Research outlook, Coaches perspective, Production systems, Olympic sports, Sonification.

Abstract: The purpose of this paper is to explore research opportunities in the Olympic sport of rowing. While

innovation in equipment is promoted in rowing the FISA rules don’t allow for it to be a deciding factor in

the performance outcome for an individual crew. Thus, the challenge is to look at innovative ways to

develop these abilities within a boat and harness their energy to create the most efficient and effective

machine. This paper describes an outlook identifying four areas containing research opportunities with an

emphasis on being able to ‘fine tune’ the moving parts of the engine that is a rowing crew: Sonification in

the learning of motoric movement, rowing dynamics that will impact the hydrodynamics around the hull by

inducing pitch and heave instead of forward propulsion, surface structures and finally objectivity in on

water performance. A research outlook is made into different research opportunities in Rowing, using a

coaches perspective. Another novelty is the comparison of the work carried out by the athletes in the rowing

to the situation in production systems with assembly operators working at assembly workstations, opening

up an new area of well-established theories to by utilised in sports.

1 INTRODUCTION

The Olympic motto, “Citius, Altius, Fortius” (Latin

for “Faster, Higher, Stronger”), governs everyday

life for many engineers. During the past few years,

Chalmers has supported a project that focuses on the

possibilities and challenges for research combined

with engineering knowledge in the area of sports.

The initiative has generated external funding and

gained great acclaim within Chalmers, among staff

and students, in the Swedish sports movement, and

in large companies as well as within small and

medium size enterprises (SMEs). The project

focused on five sports: swimming, equestrian events,

floorball, athletics, and sailing. But of late, an

expansion into further sports have starter. This paper

divulges into the Olympic sport of Rowing.

The world governing body for rowing, FISA, is

the oldest International Sport Federation, created in

1892, rowing has been on the Olympic program

from the beginning in 1896 and has 142 member

federations in all five continents. While innovation

in equipment is promoted in rowing the FISA rules

(FISA, 2013) don’t allow for it to be a deciding

factor in the performance outcome for an individual

crew. Rule 40: Innovation in equipment including,

but not limited to boats, oars, related equipment and

clothing, must meet the following requirements

before being used in the sport of rowing: Firstly, be

commercially available to all competitors’. Secondly

the factor deciding the outcome of rowing are the

physiological and technique ability of individual

athletes. Thus, the challenge is to look at innovative

ways to develop these abilities within a boat and

harness their energy to create the most efficient and

effective machine. Like the engine of a car, the

individual moving parts need to work to maximum

efficiency as both independent units and together as

a crew.

A research outlook is made into different

research opportunities in Rowing, using a coaches

perspective, as one of the authors is an Olympic

level international rowing coach and a previous

world-class athlete in rowing. With this in regard,

this paper will contribute towards coaching tools to

improve and increase efficiency of the coaching

process and to maximise the effectiveness of training

hours of rowing crews, without an increase of

Finnsgård, C. and McGowan, D..

High Performance Rowing - A Research Outlook using a Coaches Perspective.

In Proceedings of the 3rd International Congress on Sport Sciences Research and Technology Support (icSPORTS 2015), pages 299-309

ISBN: 978-989-758-159-5

299

training hours per session or requiring additional

staff. Another novelty is the comparison of the work

carried out by the athletes in the rowing to the

situation in production systems with assembly

operators working at assembly workstations,

opening up an new area of well-established theories

to by utilised in sports.

1.1 Research Challenges in Olympic

Rowing

Rowing is a sport that requires a number of

sequenced movements repeated efficiently in

repetition. From the coaches perspective, the

movement itself is quiet simple yet to maximize the

efficiency of this sequence takes a lifetime. Rowing

has proved over the past 6 years that proper talent

identification programs, actively seeking athletes

fitting a particular physical and anatomical

requirement will (under the right conditions)

produce world and Olympic champions in a

relatively short time. The challenge then is, once

having found the ‘right engines’ how to teach them

in the most effective way the proper movements

based on objective data. The fine tuning of an engine

to maximize the use of the power being created. If a

crew is to experience ‘flow’ by achieving perfect

timing and we have the data points to measure

against that give athletes Harmonic and auditory

feedback, then the process of flow becomes more

like tuning an instrument in real time.

From that point then ability to get these

individual engines to work in near perfect

synchronization working with an objective on water

system. A tool that would assist further advances in

boat and equipment design as well as objective crew

and boat selection.

However, none of the above is in any way

simple, and the tactile knowledge acquired during

coaching at the international level, can be simplified

or combined with contributions from science.

Questions that arise from the above indicate that the

movements from the rowing crews need to be

synchronized to accommodate for individual crew

properties impacting the performance of the boat.

This indicate that there is a need to further

investigate both how to achieve a better

synchronization, as well as generating knowledge on

how the synchronization affects the performance of

the boat, the rowing dynamics.

And in approaching the performance of the boat

and how the boat itself is moving through the water,

the issue of hydrodynamics and the properties of the

boat itself is obviously important. Even so in

considering the constraints provided above in all

innovations being available to all competitors, from

a research point of view in improving performance,

the surface structure of the hull is of importance.

Moving from inside or the vicinity of the crew

and boat, the nature of rowing as a sport, in

particular it being an outdoor sport, means results

produced on water are difficult to objectively

monitor. Factors including wind, tide, water

temperature and water density greatly affect the

outcome in terms of performance from an individual

boat and crew, as well as all boats in a competition.

All affecting crews and a coaches ability to make

objective decisions based on performance in any

particular race or training session. The need for

objective on water monitoring would allow for better

control of performance, and for better testing of

materials boat and oar design and ultimately crew

selection.

1.2 Purpose of the Paper

From the above background and described problems,

the purpose of this paper is to explore research

opportunities in the Olympic sport of rowing.

1.3 Methodology

This paper is a development of an on-going

discussion between the rowing coach and the centre

of sports technology at Chalmers, with this paper as

a joint and equal effort by the authors. From the

discussions using the coaches perspective, several

research opportunities have been identified, and thus

a selection of them are included in this paper. The

problems have been selected on the basis of their

challenges and connection to theoretical knowledge

from literature, the coaches perspective on the

practical relevance for the sport of rowing, as well as

the possibility to do research within the suggested

avenues of research.

1.4 Outline of the Paper

The paper describes an outlook identifying

researchable problems related to high-performance

Olympic rowing. The paper is divided according to

four directions proposed for further research. Section

2 covers sonification in the learning of motoric

movement and Section 3 how the rowing dynamics

are affecting the performance of the rowing boat.

Section 4 addresses surface structures. Section 5

progresses into the objectivity in on water

performance for rowing. Finally, Section 6 will

summarise the contributions made in the paper.

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Figure 1: Energy losses in rowing.

2 SONIFICATION IN THE AID OF

MOTORIC AND SEQUENCED

MOVEMENTS FOR ROWING

The sequence of the rowing stroke creates an ideal

activity for work in the areas of improved learning

methods in particular sequence and motoric

movement. In addition there is the need and desire

for near perfect synchronisation of these movements

in a crew boat (up to 8 people). The sequence timing

and synchronisation of both crew and individual can

be objectively identified however the means in

which it is transmitted to coach or athlete is too fast

(direct visual feedback) or too slow (post session

feedback). Inter athlete synchronisation in relation to

a changing rhythm within the boat.

Sonification as an aid for learning motoric

movements and sequence movements in rowing is

an area of research area yet to be explored. On a

larger scale, sonification in rowing is an emerging

area of study, with a focus on boat acceleration as

well as the use of sonification in recovering stroke

victims the potential of auditory feedback in

rehabilitation systems is largely underestimated in

the current literature (Molier et al., 2011). Maulucci

et al. (2001) used audio feedback to inform stroke

subjects on the deviation of their hand from the ideal

motion path and found that the auditory feedback

training improved performance.

In coaching rowing the importance of correct

sequence is important in the ability for an athlete to

make efficient stroke (refer to Figure 1 for a

summary of energy losses). 83.2% of metabolic

energy consumed by rower is wasted. From this

amount the majority of the energy losses, 77.2%,

occurs inside the rowers body. Blade slippage

contributes merely 4.9%, and boat speed variation

only 1.1% to the overall energy loss. (Nolte, 2011).

High-performance rowers use ideal movement paths

for the effectiveness of their recovery which directly

relates to the speed and efficiency in the boat; The

use of body sequence and hand pathway data to

increase boat speed has increased with the

availability of technology measuring these points.

Traditional feedback works through the coach and

the delay time could be from minutes or hours up to

days or weeks. Immediate feedback presents

information to an athlete and delay time is in a range

of seconds. More sophisticated methods employ

computerized telemetry systems, which acquire

biomechanical data, process it and deliver it to the

athletes eyes in real time (display of data and/or

video pictures on mini-monitor). An important part

of this method is a clear understanding by the athlete

of the information being provided. This must be

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done in conjunction with a coach and based on

traditional methods of feedback.

Acoustic representation of the processed

biomechanical data in the feedback-synthesis phase

of sport science and biomechanics can allow a much

less time consuming process of both coaching and

understanding of the data being measured.

Yet the traditional visual feedback in which this

information is used by coaches and athletes creates a

too fast (in the case of direct visual feedback) or too

slow (in the case of post training de brief)

information to maximize the data available.

Harmonic and auditory feedback for direct athlete

feedback in the learning of motion and sequence are

of special interest for further research and theory, as

well as in practice for high level teams.

The fine details of the pathway movement and

sequence of the stroke cycle contain a number of

research areas with a multitude of academic and

practical interests. Rowing provides an activity that

requires repetition of a number of movements in

sequence

As in most sports, the rowing movement has an

optimal sequence pathway resulting in a higher

speed outcome.

Contributions made in the area effective

sequence learning in rowing, by the use of harmonic

and auditory feedback can be translated into

increased knowledge into injury prevention,

Concurrent feedback for enhance learning of

complex motor tasks and methods of improved

correlation.

3 ROWING DYNAMICS

The dynamics of a rowing boat is a research area yet

to be explored. On a larger scale, ship propulsion in

waves is an emerging area of study, with a focus on

energy consumption. The analogy to rowing in

smaller boats differs, as high-performance rowing

boats use a large proportion of the mass of the boat

and crew for their propulsion. The induced flows

around the boat are of special interest for further

research and theory, as well as in practice for

rowers. The propulsion can be both muscularly

induced and/or induced by bodily movement,

thereby presenting an array of scientific challenges,

especially in how the boat moves in x- and y-axis’s

as a result of the strokes and bodily movements. As

means to reduce these movements, synchronisation

inter-crew can be used to align the propulsion force

and reduce x- and y-axis’s movements.

The physics of rowing contain a number of

research areas with a multitude of academic and

practical interests. They can be compared to sailing,

but differing from sailing in that sailing use

aerodynamics as the main propulsion force. Below

follows a small compassion between a sailing yacht

and a rowing boat. As all surface vessels, a sailing

yacht travels in the intersection between two media.

Its difference from, for instance, a cargo ship is that

the two media are of equal importance.

Aerodynamic forces cause propulsion, while the

resistance that it is to surpass is decided by the

hydrodynamics of the underwater shape. For most

ships, aerodynamics is of little importance, and

compared to rowing the situation differs in that

rowing as stated above use the force from the crew

as the only propulsion force.

Especially interesting are the physics of sailing

yachts in waves, which presents a very dynamic

problem. The hull must be propelled optimally in the

wave in both head and following seas. The

aerodynamics is complicated by the often sudden

movements of the mast, whereas in rowing these

sudden, but very repetitive, movements are made by

the crew.

Little research is available about sailing

dynamics and somewhat more about rowing

dynamics (such as for instance in Clanet, 2013). We

estimate that current research efforts in this area will

contribute to exploring and explaining recent

developments in high-level performance in today’s

Olympic sailing and rowing, in which athletes’

fitness and strength are evolving due to the dynamic

parts of sailing and rowing. Academic endeavours in

this area will be appreciated, by athletes and

coaches, who will become able to adopt a more

sustainable way of sailing and rowing boats closer to

their performance potential. For a more in-depth

discussions on sailing dynamics refer to Lindstrand

et al. (2014) or Finnsgård et al., (2015). The

approach to study an Olympic class sailing dinghy in

a towing tank deviates from previous research, that

for instance focus on method development (Day and

Nixon, 2014) or accuracy and repeatability of tank

testing (Ottosson et al., 2002 or Brown et al., 2002)

using America’s cup Class Yachts.

For the area of sailing and rowing dynamics,

computational methods used until now are based on

the potential flow theory that neglects viscosity. This

approach provides adequate results for some

movements, while inadequate and generally poor

results in others. The increased resistance in waves

is an area in which potential flow can be used for

approximations only. As aforementioned, for newly

constructed vessels, international regulations will

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necessitate accurate predictions of vessel resistance

in waves. By using emerging computational

capabilities, it is now possible to use the Reynolds-

Averaged Navier–Stokes (RANS) type to use to

simulate movements in waves in viscous flows.

Contributions made in the area concerning sailing

yachts and rowing boats, by the use of advanced

RANS methodologies, can be translated into

increased knowledge about the movements of ships

in waves.

Ways of increasing the synchronisation between

individuals in a crew boat can be further explored,

near perfect timing between athletes in Olympic

classes is a necessity in optimising performance. In

rowing a chain connects the power applied by the

athlete to the oar and then to the boat in order to

propel. Energy moves through these three points. In

coaching terms this is referred to the "efficiency" of

the rower. This is measured as the ratio of the total

mechanical power applied at the handle and the

stretcher (Kleshnev, 2000) to the consumed

metabolic power which can be evaluated using

physiological gas-analaysis methods. This efficiency

was measured at 22.8+- 2.2% (mean+- SD)

(Fukunaga et al., 1986) Ergo (rowing machine)

scores explain only 40% to 84% of variation in on-

water performance in small boats and 10% to 50% in

big boats (Mikulic et al., 2009) the rest is explained

by other factors, including technique, crew

synchronization, physiology and so on. Rowers with

equal ergo scores can perform with a 10-15 seconds

difference on the water, and winners and losers are

often split by a fraction of a second. Synchronising

the energy from the three points between up to 8

athletes is done through experience gathered in the

individual athletes and input from coach and bio

mechanic equipment.

In assisting a team to achieve maximum

synchronisation 12 key moments in the cycle are

defined. (Kleshnev, 2014) and then displayed in

Figure 2, and shown with video in Figure 3:

T1. Min. Seat Velocity (negative) during

recovery, when switching from pulling to pushing

the stretcher.

T2. Catch – Zero handle velocity, when the oar

movement changes direction;

T3. Zero Seat Velocity at the catch, when the

seat changes direction;

T4. Zero Vertical Angle at the catch, when

centre of the blade crosses water level

T5. Entry Force 200N at catch (sum of left and

right forces in sculling). The threshold was chosen to

distinguish force in the water from oar inertia force.

T6. Force up to 70%, which indicates

engagement of large muscle groups.

T7. Max. Seat Velocity during the drive, which

indicates acceleration of rower’s mass.

T8. Peak Force – emphasis of efforts.

T9. Force down below 70% shows maintenance

of the force during the second half of the drive.

T10. Zero Vertical Angle at the finish shows

“washing out” of the blade.

T11. Exit force 100N (sum in sculling) at the

finish.

T12. Finish – Zero handle velocity.

Figure 2: 12 Key moments in a rowing stroke cycle.

These points when perfected will generate a faster

crew. The problem is the process is slowed down by

the current limitations of direct athlete feedback.

The current system of visual feedback requires

post session debriefing, trial and error then more

testing to see if there was progress in a positive

direction. It is a similar process to tuning a guitar

without sound, being directed by a third party to

tighten or loosen the string. By using harmonic and

or auditory feedback the athlete would be tuning

their ‘instrument’ together in real time which would

add the advantage of real time trial and error in a

split second of movement.

Another aspect of rowing dynamics is how the

individual athletes working together for the

propulsion of the boat. Albeit working individually,

their individual position inside the boat is

predetermined by the design of the boat. This will

imply that their individual efforts will be connected

into the same system that creates the propulsion for

the boat. Alas there will also be losses in the

transferal of the individual athlete’s efforts, as

explained in previous parts of the paper. Also on the

entire system level (the boat) there are losses

evident, in how the dynamics of two or more

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Figure 3: An example of synchronisation of video and biomechanical feedback.

athletes might interfere with another. By this stage,

there are a lot of analogies with theories about

production systems in industry. Since the area of

production systems is very well researched since

long, and in-depth, these analogies could be used for

the benefit for the sport of rowing. Thusly, this

section will endeavor into how to compare the

synchronization of a rowing crew with a production

system and a series of assembly workstations in an

assembly system. A few general concepts will be

discussed briefly and how they can be connected to

rowing dynamics. It should be noted that this area

could be further explored in all capacities with

further research.

For a production system, efficiency is the

internal performance of the studied entity.

Effectiveness is the performance in relation to the

environment of the studied entity (Öjmertz, 1998).

For the situation of rowing this transfers to

efficiency being how well the crew perform in

relation to the specified targets for a race or training

session, and effectiveness transfers to how well the

entire crew and boat perform in relation to other

boats in a race. Monden (1998) presents several

performance measures more closely related to the

workstation. The first objective, in establishing

performance, should be to determine the takt time.

The takt time determines how much time is

available to produce one product in relation to the

available time frame, also considering the

customer’s requirements (Monden, 1998). One can

certainly argue that takt time is not a performance

measure as it has little to do with operations at the

workstation, but it is important in itself as it links

customer demand and output from the workstation.

Takt time is also used as a way to establish

requirements on other performance parameters (i.e.

effects). The concept of takt time will become

evident in rowing in how to synchronise the crew’s

individual efforts into the desired output, the takt. If

the entire crew would work to a desired takt, the

most likely outcome would be to win a race by a

small margin, or another agreed target, translated

into each individual stoke of the crew. However,

determining. And if the concept of takt is used, the

relation to section 5 in this paper will become

evident.

Another interesting comparision between

production systems and rowing can be done using

the cycle time. The cycle time is explained by

Monden (1998) as:

Cycle time = Total time necessary for

performing the processes included

in the standard (including non-

value adding time).

Like takt time, cycle time is a term that is not mainly

used itself for performance measures, but in

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describing other performance measures. For rowing,

the cycle time would be the time for each rower’s

stroke.

The assembly line is a term that has been used in

force in production systems for more than a decade.

Usually the term is attributed to Ford (1926), but the

use goes back further and any mentioning of the

development of production systems should include

the term scientific management as described by

Taylor (1911). With the development of assembly

lines and a layout following the flow of completion

of the assembled product, the work tasks where

divided into separated workstations performing

different operations.

At the assembly workstation, being part of a

flow or line, the distribution of operations between

the workstations is termed line balancing (Wild,

1995). The time to perform the allocated operations

at one workstation is called the service time. Note

that the service time is from the workstation point-

of-view, and not from a flow perspective.

Combining service time and cycle time, three

situations emerge: the cycle time is longer than the

service time, the cycle time is equal to the service

time, or the cycle time is shorter than the service

time. For the two first two the operator has time to

finish assembly; but in the last case, the operator

will not finish assembly in time – this is thus a

possible cause of disturbances in the assembly

system (Ellegård et al., 1992; Monden, 1998; Wild,

1995). In any case, a difference in cycle and service

time causes a balancing loss (Wild, 1995), refer to

figure 4 for a depiction of theses terms. There is a

very clear distinction between cycle time and service

time to the takt time, as the two first are connected

to the design of the workstation operations and the

latter to the customer demand for the output of the

production system.

For rowing this is somewhat intriguing. For the

line balancing you have the different work tasks

divided between what side of the boat the oar is on,

and with the position in the boat determining who

will set the cycle time (i.e. the time it should take to

perform one stroke). If this time deviates in any

rower’s individual service time, a balancing loss will

occur in the system as a whole.

Figure 4: The principles of balancing losses (adapted from

Ellegård, et al., 1992).

On balancing losses and cycle time, figure 5

provides some interesting results, based on the case

studies by Wild (1975, 1995), as the balancing

losses decrease with longer cycle time.

Figure 5: Balancing losses (%) vs. cycle time at the

workstation (Wild, 1975, 1995).

Ideally, this means that it should be easy to design

perfect assembly lines with matching service and

takt times. However, this is difficult in practice

because of differences, in the cycle time used, both

between operators and in the same operator, as

shown in figure 6 below (Wild, 1995). For rowing

to use these results, there are several challenges, as

the study does not divulge into the very short cycle

times used in rowing. However the results indicate

that balancing losses of between 4-12% or more are

to be expected for rowing. Note that this is only the

case of a crew of two or more. For the single sculler

this is not applicable.

Figure 6: Time distribution for repetitive manual work

(Wild, 1995).

With the variation in time, when the cycle time is

less than the service time, a loss will occur,

designated a system loss (Ellegård, et al., 1992;

Wild, 1995). If several workstations are connected to

each other in an assembly process, the relation

between these is likely to influence system losses

(Wild, 1975). As the variation in manual operations

is very evident in a rowing boat, these results are

Losses [% of necessary work]

Production cycle time [min.]

Balancing losses

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305

very usable in rowing. Wild (1995) has shown how

system losses can be reduced significantly by the use

of buffers between workstations, see figure 7. Alas

this is not applicable to rowing as all operations are

performed simultaneously and a buffer is not

possible to introduce, however tempting.

Figure 7: System losses (%) for different buffer capacities

in un-paced serial flow (Wild, 1975, 1995).

These discussions how to view the operations inside

rowing using the taxonomy form production systems

have a very interesting potential. Apart from

indicating the same set of problems, a very extensive

set of toolboxes are available from previous research

how to reduce losses in production systems.

Applying these in the sport of rowing would be the

next step in further research.

Figure 8: Dependence of the boat speed on water

temperature. Points – experimental data of Klaus Filter,

line – fitted power trend.

4 SURFACE STRUCTURES

Ways of reducing the resistance of ships is a very

well-researched area, with current on-going research

(refer to for instance Larsson and Raven, 2010). For

rowing boats this area can be further explored, and

special considerations for the high performance in

Olympic rowing is a necessity. Surface structures

offer an opportunity for research in this area.

However, the FISA rules (FISA, 2013) includes

section 4.1, stating: “No substances or structures

(including riblets) capable of modifying the natural

properties of water or of the boundary layer of the

hull/water interface shall be used“. Thus, working

with surface structures in the sport of rowing

encounters special considerations.

It has been known for some time, Bechert and

Hoppe (1985), that the texture of the shark skin

reduces drag. This has been exploited in several

applications, the Speedo swim suit being perhaps the

most well-known example. 3M developed a special

film with longitudinal grooves, called riblets, used in

the America’s Cup in sailing in the 1980’s. One of

the involved researchers at Chalmers, Prof. Lars

Larsson (and co-workers), patented a surface texture

which had both drag reduction and anti-fouling

properties, Berntsson et al. (2000). For a recent

review of drag reduction using riblets, see Dean and

Bhushan (2010). The possibility of testing these

concepts in high-performance rowing would be an

interesting avenue of research, to validate previous

findings and explore the possibility of adapting the

concepts and overcome the manufacturing aspects

encountered in sailing as mentioned in Larsson et al.

(2014).

5 OBJECTIVE WAYS OF

MONITORING ON WATER

PERFORMANCE

When it comes to the Olympic motto "Citius. Altius.

Fortius" yes it does mean Faster. Higher. Stronger.

But it doesn't mean faster, higher and stronger than

who you are competing against, it just means faster,

higher, stronger.

In rowing as in all sports, coaches seek objective

date in order to work towards a set pathway.

Monitoring of results in all aspects from the athletes

anatomy and oxygen uptake through to gain in

muscle strength and speed is recorded so a clear

pathway is defined for the athlete or team.

Objectivity in outdoor conditions is an obstacle that

has limited a major part of the monitoring of

progress in many Olympic sports. In particular

rowing.

No. of workstations

Losses [% of necessary work]

Buffer

capacity

System losses - unpaced serial flow

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Figure 9: Dependence of the speed of various boat types on wind direction and speed. Points – experimental data of Klaus

Filter, lines – fitted second order polynomial trends.

Figure 10: Variation of the boat speed relative the average in the boat type in the winners of World Championships and

Olympic Games during 1993-2009.

With conditions such as wind, water temperature

playing such a major factor in the finishing time of a

boat, objectivity in any "on water" performance has

been a task yet unattainable in rowing (see Figure 8

and 9). This has a significant impact for materials

tested and for boat, oars and crew selection.

Due to its outdoor nature rowing has no "world

records" (refer to Figure 10).

World’s best times are used when a boat travels

faster than any crew in history. This is due to many

factors including water temperatures wind

conditions, water density. As a result it is very

difficult to objectively identify the speed

improvement of a boat on water. In a local

environment on a daily basis directional chances in

wind and over longer periods change in water

temperature influences the effect on absolute boat

speed.

The problem in weather conditions on speed can

be shown by the 2012 London games where the

winner (Great Brittan) won the Olympic Gold in a

time of 06:03.970.

While 6 weeks earlier the exact same crew

(much less tapered and less race trained) won the

second world cup in a world’s best time of

05:37.860

That close to 8% in boat speed change. Refer to

table 1 for a comparison. (note that the difference

between 1st and 6th in both races was less than 3%).

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307

Table 1: An example speed variation in one crew due to

outdoor conditions.

English m4- Time [W]/500 m

Prognostic

Time

World cup 2 05:37.860 580.81 102,11%

Olympic

Games

06:03.970

464.57 94.97%

Environmental performance has been studied by for

instance Pezzolli et al. (2015) in cycling regarding

the effect the environment has on performance. An

adaptation of this for use in the sport of rowing is

highly interesting. Pezzoli et al. (2013) analysed a

few factors regarding the impact of wind-wave

interactions in enclosed basins (the case of rowing is

an example of this).

While this paper suggests an adaption of these

ideas would be to produce a pace drone is a boat that

produces a particular speed through energy

production. Its output of power is set and its speed is

influenced by the same factors affecting the boat it

paces.

For example in flat conditions with the water

temperature of 20 (deg. C) the drone produces 420

W to travel 2000 m in 6:00 minutes. The drone is

then placed in a different environment with a water

temperature of 10 (deg. C) and a strong head wind.

The drone is producing the same 420 W however its

time after 2000 m (6:30) is 30 seconds slower. This

is the challenge in objectifying a crews performance

who train on different stretches of water at different

times of the year and day. By being able to objectify

a performance a crew will know that by being faster

than their drone opponent they are in fact faster

objectively. This can also open new possibilities to

identify a crews strength and weaknesses in different

conditions as well as assist in objective crew and

boat selection.

In addition to this the drone could "mirror" the

race profile of a boat in different conditions

replicating the exact race plan in W regardless of

conditions. The race profile from the opening speed

out of the start (520 W) to the middle (480 W)

would give crews the ability to gage themselves in

race work creating an objective tool for coaches to

monitor on water performance.

With current GPS data in rowing (and other

sports) the potential to use the race profile from past

international races enables crews to chase down a

world or Olympic champion over the cause of

season.

6 CONCLUSIONS

This paper has presented a multitude of research

challenges related to high-performance rowing.

Rowing provides the practical problem motivation

for these research areas. As being a part of

Chalmers’ initiative into sports, several

professorships have been suggested related to the

issues raised in this paper. All providing excellent

research opportunities and prerequisites for excellent

world-class research within their respective fields.

The paper outlined three major issues in the

sport of rowing, synchronisation (including several

aspects entwined), rowing dynamics (including

synchronisation and hydrodynamics), and the issue

of objectively measuring performance of crews.

Neither has been solved in this paper but research

directions have been outlined and indicated.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The authors wish to acknowledge the support from

Mölndals Rodd Klubb, the Materials Science Area

of Advance at Chalmers University of Technology

and Västra Götalandsregionen via

Regionutvecklingsnämnden.

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