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There is a group called "Rowperfect" on Facebook.
Join it to receive news on the new Indoor Sculler…. fast as you like!
If you are new to Facebook, you have to register on the site before you can see individual groups.
We've written before about helping out clubs and regattas who need to borrow equipment.
Well this was the first time we have been asked to help at a World Championships. We were approached by the USA WL1x coach, Mike Naughton asking if he could get some Dreher Apex sculls.
Thanks to our Scottish-based Agent, Ailie Ord, we were able to lend a pair of sculls to Nicole.
Here's a photo album from the regatta (including lovely images of her painting the sculls). And a nice note of thanks from Mike
The oars were great, as expected. I have always liked the Apex blades, and Nicole prefers them as well.
Nicole raced well, but she was a bit off the pace of the rest of the competitors. She finished 15th overall. She's been sculling seriously for about 8 months, so I'm very pleased with her development to this point.
After racing the repechage defensively in the very rough water, she realized that she had to remain aggressive in her final regardless of the conditions.
In the C Final, she had put herself in 2nd place and was moving slowly on 1st, and then she got caught up in rough water and buoys and dropped back to 3rd. But then she recomposed herself and moved back into 2nd. Again, the water got the better of her and she fell to 3rd. She crossed the line in 3rd while still trying to charge back and recover the lost ground. With more experience, she'll be able to handle those conditions much better while racing. What I was very pleased to see was that she never gave up or got frustrated - she just kept trying to charge back.I was mistaken to expect the U23 Worlds to be a notch below the level of the Senior Worlds. I would describe most of the competitors as Senior level athletes who happen to be younger than 23. It was definitely impressive to see the level of such young athletes.
Thanks to both of you for arranging the use of the Dreher Apex oars.
Cheers,
Mike Naughton
Glad to be able to help, Mike!
And some of the photos…
Red Blue Finished!
The USA Mens Quad are using Dreher round sculls in their equipment for the World Rowing Championships currently being held in Munich, Germany.
Take a look at this video of a practice start.
It clearly illustrates how clean the sculls are as they go in and come out of the water.
And good on you for choosing Drehers!
Each month the "Image Conscious" section of the Rowing and REgatta Magazine where readers send in their photographs for publication has a prize for the Editor's choice of the best image.
In October, the prize has been donated by Rowperfect and the Editor’s pick winner will receive a pair of Magik Rowing Oarlocks
The Magik Oarlock is designed to reduce the ‘slippage’ between the oar and the gate so that your rowing becomes more efficient. Its unique lever arm holds tension onto the oar holding it closely against the pin. The tension elastic band is available in hard, medium and soft bands (all supplied). All Magik gates use standard metric pitching inserts. These gates have been used by Gold medal winners at the World Championships (New Zealand M2- Gold 2005, Germany M8+ Gold 2006).
Rowperfect visits a lot of clubs and rowing suppliers…. Realising that most of you never see this side of our work, I thought I'd publish some pictures of people and places we have been to…
Janousek / Stampfli. Here's Phil Gregory talking to Grant Craies.
And Molesey Rowing Club - their club house where we picked up their Rowperfects for servicing.
We met Foxy and John Van Ingen coaching a new bunch of juniors… and a pile of Dreher sweeps on a rack…clearly being used by the womens squad as they had their names on the shafts.
Rowperfect and Cambridge Racing Shells (CRS) supported the Sudbury Rowing Club's annual regatta .
Its a fantastic example of a proper local regatta with fun for all….. I particularly liked the summary of the day's events and photo-news produced here
There's some nice video from Row.tv - thanks, David Flook!
Together CRS and Rowperfect sponsored three new trophies and provided boats, oars and cox boxes for Committee Boat races held during the regatta.
Drehers being used by the women….. and Power and Glory as the Elite men win - and set a new course record!
A group of international athletes has provided us with sample curves of their technique when training on the Rowperfect.
Here is a zipped file from which you can download them. Most are from the DOS software and a couple are from Rowperfect for Windows software (RPW).
the athletes include:
THese can be uploadedinto the RPW software to form a template against which you can do your own training…. And if you find that you aren't (quite) as strong as Mahe, you can use the Stroker Programme in DOS to re-size the curve to fit your own capabilities. e.g. reduce overall length by 15% and reduce overall height by 20%.
You will have seen the recent success of the Estonian 2x at the World Cup Regattas. Juri Jaanson the Olympic silver medallist at Athens in 1x is in this boat.
Juri is a long time Rowperfect user. and used it to calculate his gold medal time and target splits in his preparation for Athens. They calculated the joules output required per stroke to achieve the target splits and so if you watch the Athens 1x final, you will see Juri rates about 36 down most of the course and produces near-flat splits throughout. [Ask us if you want to know how to do this calculation for yourself].
Now he is training with his doubles partner on linked Rowperfects….. and it seems to be having the desired results.
His training has been studied by a goup of sports science researchers and they have published the findings in Sports Medicine Magazine.
The article is by: Jarek Maestu, Jaak Jurimae, Toivo Jurimae
Monitoring of Performance and Training in Rowing;
Sports Medicine 2005, vol 37 (7) page 587-617.
We had an email enquiry from Chris de Mauney asking us about the specific advantages of the new Rowperfect….
This intrigued us so much, we wrote to the manufacturer to see what they said…. here's the answer.
Specific advantages -
- lower centre of mass flywheel leads to more stability
- stacks vertically on its end
- lower noise
- easier adjustment for feet and fan damper / resistance
- on-machine monitor showing unique force curve
- tension handle to simulate catch going into water
- one-legged rowing enabled
- simplified tensioning onto bar (this is for servicing and advanced set-up)
Advantages that were also on the earlier machines
- Read-outs comparable to on-water times
- weight adjusted scores
- it simulates the rowing / sculling action and so can be used to teach good technique and how to apply effective force and power to move a boat
- unique force curve output
- row and copy elite athletes' force curves
- Rowperfect for Windows software in addition to screen display - compare athletes side by side
- link bar to join up to 4 machines and row together as a crew
- fewer injuries to back / legs / joints because of 1/6th less force on your body at the catch compared to C2/Waterrower
Rowperfect (UK) Ltd, Sales: Rebecca Caroe +44 (0) 7970 734 330, Service: Grant Craies +44 (0) 7970 266 180
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