Which is harder sculling or sweeping

The boats or shells in the diagram reflect the two forms of rowing which are sweep rowing and sculling. In sweep rowing each rower handles a single oar about In sculling a rower uses two oars, or sculls, each about 9. These shells are also rather long and as narrow as possible, which makes the boats very fast, but also quite hard to balance. Rowing Rowing terminology can be very confusing for the newcomer to the sport, especially for parents who are trying to figure out the names of the various boat types and seat positions.

Sweep Rowing versus Sculling There are two ways to move a boat across the water. Post by [old] jamesg » November 26th, , am. Post by [old] remador » November 26th, , am. Post by [old] Kudos » November 26th, , pm. Post by [old] gorow9 » November 27th, , pm. Post by [old] JosephNovak » November 27th, , pm. Post by [old] gorow9 » December 1st, , pm. Privacy Policy. Quick links. Sculling Vs Sweep read only section for reference and search purposes. General Post by [old] gorow9 » November 23rd, , pm Just curious what people find to be the biggest differences in sweep and sculling, I personally think it's tenique.

All rowers I know are able to row both. I've done both, but I wouldn't say that most on the water rowers can do both. In my experience that is not the case. Just about everyone can sweep, but not all of them know how to scull. Even though I have done for most of my 11 year career, I really do not like sweeping all that much.

The one sided-ness annoys me. Not to say that it is flawed, just a personal preference. So thats why so many people know only sweep. But most scullers know how to sweep as well. Any idiot can downgrade. General Post by [old] gorow9 » November 24th, , pm Bravo, thankyou captian obvious.

In sweep you have to be careful to feather only with u'r inside hand, a chalange for those of us who learned sculling. That opening statement displays a most fundamental misunderstanding of fluid dynamics. Thus in the above we read: "Originally made from wood, shells are now almost always made from a composite material usually carbon-fibre reinforced plastic for strength and weight advantages.

FISA rules specify minimum weights for each class of boat so that no individual will gain a great advantage from the use of expensive materials or technology.

Beware presuming the supposedly obvious. So there is no possible agreement. Sorry that the facts don't fit with popular fiction, but I deal in facts. I think you intended the opposite to that statement? What you might expect looks to me like an attempt at wish fulfilment. In a supposedly technical discussion we should rely only on demonstrable fact.

Next, it is pretty well accepted but I'm of course open to challenge that good scullers make outstanding sweep crews, but not vice-versa. Since Bill Atkinson denies the importance of fluid dynamics in blade action, I'm not about to agree there. Your statement is tantamount to saying that bigger wings would make a plane fly more economically, which overlooks the tendency for there to be optima - a right size for a wing or any foil including an oarblade.

In fact I see scant evidence that blades are ever sized according to the power or strength of the user. It might be a good start to appreciate that understanding of the propulsion of rowing shells labours under a large science deficit. Individuals do experiment, but maybe not as widely as we might wish. For as long as rowers continue to believe there is a perfect style or rhythm, we shall keep forcing ourselves back into an unnecessarily constraining box.

Ah, the curse of the orthogonal! Sorry, that's another of those false beliefs that has been hammered to death here on RSR but of course prevails across the rest of the sport. It may seem logical that it is best to "push" directly astern, but unfortunately that's wrong. In truth there's a raft of sound hydrodynamic reasons for a long stroke arc - once the boat is moving. But scullers go faster. Probably close to the mark there.

As I said, the sweep rower has to divert some effort into staying in the boat by overcoming the unbalanced side-loads that sweep rowing generates. Beware of helpful links arising out of this sport, please. The blade end of the rowing stroke is a very complex hydrodynamic process, fraught with difficulty for those who resist its seemingly counter-intuitive conclusions. It is the internal tension in the water covering the back of the blade which "locks" the blade against the water.

The surprisingly slight increase in fluid pressure across the concave front of the blade is largely irrelevant. But who, in the normal way, would have thought that "unsupported water" could deliver such tensile integrity?

As I say, hydrodynamics is very counter-intuitive. For me, the best example of this type of dogmatic believe is the fosbury flop style in high jumping. The difference between straddle style and fosbury style aren't as big as most people believe. The record with straddle style is still a very respectable 2. Also, the straddle style doesn't require much more height increase of the body centre of gravity compared to the fosbury style. Still, virtually everyone uses the fosbury style.

Presently, it may be well possible that the style is not as successful simply because nobody practices and uses it anymore. If not, still some people with certain specific body dimensions might be better of with the straddle style. The "flop" style of jumping allows the centre of mass of the jumper to pass under the bar while the body folds itself over the bar. The "straddle" style requires that the centre of mass of the body passes over the bar. So - to clear any height with the straddle style of jump, you need to jump higher than to clear the same height with the flop.

Please don't ask me to cite the research - anyone currently at a university with access to the literature online can look it up - I'm presently not one of those. The straddle style also allows the centre of mass to pass under the bar and is virtually the same as the flop style in this aspect.

Don't ask me to cite the research. I've been looking like hell to find the original paper which gave me this thought and couldn't find it. At that time on the international stage you regularly saw straddle being used.

I did the Fosbury style. However I can remember being told, rightly or wrongly, that straddle had the advantage over Fosbury of allowing the CoM to pass under the bar, but was far more difficult to learn, the choice was ours.

Nobody persevered with straddle for very long, because Fosbury was a natural extension of the scissors style and was almost trivial to learn. Well let's logic it out. Flop style - wrap the body over the bar, bent backwards with most of the mass under the bar as the upper body passes over, then dives for the mat while the legs are still on their way up and over - when the hips are above the bar, the head arms and shoulders, and the bulk of the legs are under the bar, putting the com under the bar if it's all averaged out.

I've chucked out my copy of Hay, but when I get unpacked I'll look up my Winter to see if it's there. Thank you for your extensive response to the points raised on rowing efficiencies not flopping.