News

The final HC video set is showing how to use the Coxmate GPS system to calibrate your HC.  When Peter Hodson was specifying the design, he asked us at Rowperfect UK whether we thought a 500m distance was appropriate as the shortest distance over which to measure speed for calibration purposes.

Now many of you know we are located in Cambridge, UK.  This has oen of the most bendy rivers in the UK and we were adamant that our river only allowed 300m in a straight line maximum.  And so we influenced the specification of the HC GPS - it now calibrates over 250m.

Phew.

You can hire an HC GPS calibration unit from us for one week at a time.  Please ask.

And now the second part of that video.

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Now for some fun while training.  Setting up a pace boat function.

This sets a fixed speed as if you had a pace boat running along side you.  The HC then displays a + or - speed against the stated pace so you can see if you are going faster or slower than your stated aim.  This is perfect for long UT2 winter outings so you can see the effect tiredness or technical changes have on your boat speed.

There are two videos - one has the pace speed set at meters per second and the second at 500m splits.  You need to have first set up the display to the speed measurement of your choice.

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We follow a Twitter account @TheRowingCoach and there was an interesting question from Tobias @soundblaster21

@TheRowingCoach hi any good websites for junior rowing games, either on or off erg looking for something a bit different to do with them. thx

 Now we know about ergo golf.  Here's the simple way to play:

1. set a number of holes and decide the length of each hole in meters.
2. Each athlete has to try and complete that distance in the fewest number of strokes.
3. Keep score

And we found this more complex version of "Erg Golf" with a score sheet table from the Cascadilla Boat Club.

We found a discussion thread on Coxie.com which included

• teams rowing 1 minute each and aiming for furthest distance
• 500m relays in teams of 5 where each rowed 5 times
• Coxswains yelling out split times (high or low) and the last person to achieve the split is out and gets to yell at the rest with the cox

Any others?

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Onwards and upwards.  Got the basic display settings showing what you want?  You can turn on the backlight, display your distance moved per stroke (as advocated by British Rowing - the most important speed measurement to track).

Now onto accuracy and calibration:  The HC allows you to use either a coxmate micro impeller or the NK impeller.  You can set the display to accommodate this.  Because the micro-impeller spins faster than the NK you'll get hugely fast or slow speed readings if you fail to set this up.

And to calibrate the HC manually (assuming you've done two pieces on flat water over a marked distance and have recorded the offset error from the device reading against the actual disatnce).

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The Coxmate HC is really catching on with customers as they find its range of functions useful to their training.

When Peter Hodson, the inventor of Coxmate, visited us recently we took some video of him showing off some of its key features.

We'll be showing them off in a series of posts over the next week.  Come back regularly to find out

• set display options
• manual calibration
• pace boat set up m/s
• pace boat set up 500m
• Impeller type selection
• Calibrate using GPS part 1
• Calibrate using GPS part 2

Here's the first one.  How to set the display options.

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We are pleased to share with you the Great8's newest member, Warren Anderson.  USA single sculler - he subbed in for Olaf Tufte whose wife had a baby just before the Head of the Charles Regatta.  Warren was interviewed by Row2K.

There are also some great video interviews … watch out for Marcel Hacker clowning around!

and photos of the womens pull-together crew 'great shark' made up of current and former internationals. 

We also enjoyed the interview tihe Ursula Grobler-James who won the open womens Champion 1x.  She's a lightweight and is trained by Carlos Dinares who, coincidentally was the guy who bought all the RPs for the University of Washington crew that dominated last year's US results.  She is hoping to become a US citizen and row for the US in the World Champs next summer.

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Got a lovely photo from Malvern Prep school who have an 8 man Dreher sculling tank installed.

You can see coach Craig Hoffman in the background (he's the one holding the paper).  

The lads use the special Dreher tank sculls and you can clearly see the the bolt-together sections of the tank along the back wall, the walkway so coaches can get close to correct athletes' technique and the mirrors so athletes can see themselves.

We interviewed Coach Hoffman for the newsletter at Henley Royal Regatta.

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Rowperfect customer Gareth Duffill was desperate to get hold of his new sculler's rear view mirror before a race at the weekend.

We succeeded in hand-delivering the parcel to him near his work and he sent us a delighted SMS this morning.

Hi Rebecca, thanks for bringing the mirrors to Twickenham.  We won our Vet Novice Class at the Webridge Silver Sculls!  Best regards, Gareth.

When we can make it work out for our customers, we do try to overcome adversity.

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During the UK Postal strike, we will endeavour to get your orders to you using the best means possible.  For orders over £250 these can be sent by courier - next day delivery to a signed-for address.

For smaller orders, we are taking advice each day from our local post office staff and taking action based on their advice.  To date, this has been to send items first class but to expect a 3+ day delivery, or to use signed for or special delivery signed for services.  

We will continue to endeavour to get your orders out as quickly as possible.

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Image via Wikipedia

Ian South, longtime Kingston Rowing Club coach and former coach to  internationals Rebecca Romero, Sarah Birch and Jen Goldsack has been testing and reviewing sculls for an article in the UK Rowing and Regatta magazine.

We sent him a pair of Dreher carbon adjustable Apex (£399), Dreher Club Big Blades (£350) and Dreher Aeros (£499) to add to the large pile of competing brands.

I won't spoil the output of the article but he did give us some feedback:

An athlete using any of the Dreher sculls can immediately tell that they feel different.  Event the least competent sculler I gave them to could determine the difference between Drehers and the other brands.  The grip in the water is noticable.

The Drehers came up favourably compared to the others.  

I was particularly impressed with the Club sculls - these should be selling well in the clubs - they are well designed and the price is extremely favourable.

I tested the stiffness using a deflection test for all the sculls using a laser level and a 10kg weight and the Drehers were stiff and consistent. 

This is a good blade.  It is the only one in the marketplace that is robust and is manufactured consistently the same.

If you are a club, why spend an extra £50 [on a different brand] you won't get anything more for it.

You'll have to wait for the whole article to come out to get the rest of his comparison to other designs.

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