Racing shell

Toronto rowers in a 4-oar shell

In watercraft, a racing shell (also referred to as just a fine boat (UK) or just shell) is an extremely narrow, and often disproportionately long, rowing boat specifically designed for racing or exercise. It is outfitted with long oars, outriggers to hold the oarlocks away for the boat, and sliding seats. The boat's long length and semicircular cross-section reduce drag to a minimum. This makes the boat both fast and unstable. It must be actively balanced by the rowers to avoid tipping. Being able to balance, or "set" the boat while putting maximum effort into the oars is therefore an essential skill of rowing.

History

The racing shell evolved from the simple working rowboat. Boats with longer hulls and narrower in beam were developed in the early 1800s specifically for team racing. These dedicated boats were the first boats that could be called racing shells, and they have since evolved into the highly specialized forms used today.

Riggers

A narrower boat provides a sharper angle to the bow and a smaller cross-sectional area reducing drag and wave drag, and avoiding hull speed limitations at race speed. The first racing shells, while narrower than working rowboats, were limited by the width necessary to mount the oarlocks on the boat's sides ("gunwales"). By attaching riggers to the gunwales, the oarlocks could be placed farther out, two things happened: oars got much longer, providing more length to the strokes, and hulls got narrower, until they were as narrow as it was possible while still retain sufficient buoyancy and balance.

Materials

University of Vermont 8-oar shell

Originally made from lapstrake wood, shells are now almost always made from a composite material for strength and weight advantages. The first composite shells were made from a form of papier-mâché and became popular in the 1870s. Modern shells are usually made of carbon-fibre reinforced plastic in a honeycomb structure. They are manufactured by either cold laying up of the carbon, which is then left to set, or by using heat curing, which ensures that the carbon fibre composite is properly set. The best shells are characterized by their "stiffness", as the lack of flexing means none of the force exerted by the rower is wasted in twisting the boat.

Sliding seats

A rower on a fixed seat is limited in the amount of power he can apply to the oars by the strength in his upper body and the distance he can pull the oars on each stroke. After riggers were added to the shell allowing the use of longer oars, rowers took advantage by taking longer strokes and using their legs during the stroke. At first, the athletes wore trousers with wear resistant leather bottoms covered in grease and the shells had concave, longitudinal seats. The athletes could then use their legs to slide along the seat, adding the power of their legs and letting them greatly lengthen the stroke. This eventually lead to the modern sliding seat, mounted on rollers, which allows nearly frictionless movement of the rower's body.

Boat classification

There are a large number of different types of boats. They are classified using:

• Number of rowers. In all forms of modern competition the number is either 1, 2, 4, or 8. Although they are very rare, boats for other numbers of rowers do exist (such as the 24 person Stampfli Express). In the 1800s, there were often races with 6, 10 and 12 rowers per boat.^{[citation needed]}

• Position of coxswain. Boats are either coxless, bow-coxed (also called bowloaders), or stern-coxed. In coxless ("straight") boats, a steersman is responsible for steering by either use of a mechanism connecting one of his shoes by wire to the rudder--the swiveling of the shoe turns the rudder, or by using a hand controlled string, called a tiller rope, which is parallel to the gunwhales or the boat, and controls the rudder in a similar fashion. Singles, doubles, and quads do not employ a rudder in competition; the oarsmen steer by increasing or decreasing pressure on one scull or the other. In competition, bow- and stern-coxed boats may race one another.

Although sculling and sweep boats are generally identical to each other (except having different riggers), they are referred to using different names:

• Sweep: straight pair (2-), coxed pair (2+), straight four (4-), coxed four (4+), eight (8+) (always coxed)
• Sculling: single (1x), double (2x), quad (4x), octuple (8x) (very rare, and always coxed)

References

• A history of paper boats, including the paper racing shell
• History of MIT Crew: Chapter 8, which covers the evolution of the rowing shell