An analysis of one recovery

The scene: the river Cam, Saturday the 3rd of February 2018. The guilty parties: Chesterton "Tradesmen" 8+ filmed by JP. We're about 5 minute into a 9 minute "piece" at rate 20. The video is I think private so if you can't see it, tough, you're not one of the Favoured Few. The stills here are from one recovery at 5:43, but having watched quite a few, it is typical, though I think I've chosen one of the (many) balanced strokes. Captured at 720 px and at 0.25 speed.

Are you sitting comfortably? Then I'll begin. My focus is on stern three: Chris, me and Conor. Not because the rest of the boat are unworthy of attention but because there are interesting things amongst us.

1. Tap down. Fairly good. Perhaps arguably Conor is a little slow, and maybe 4 and 2 are following him; and perhaps the extraction isn't as clean as it could be at 5 and 3; but never mind, that's not the focus of this post. We start off OK.



2. Nearly at blades-perpendicular. I'm doing my - ahem - "blended" arms-n-bodies, and should learn to sit back off the finish a little more, whereas the rest of the crew are still somewhat leant back. In particular, although I'm a touch quick off the finish, we're largely at consistent positions up the slide.



3. The blades are now perpendicular to the boat and all looks pretty good.



4. Only a little later and things are starting to go off. Conor has (rather abruptly and, I shall argue, prematurely) squared. Meanwhile I've allowed my blade to droop towards the water (I do this on about 50% of strokes I think) and am now somewhat in advance of Chris.



5. Horizontal arrows: Chris's blade is low, Conor's blade is now rather high. Conor is fully square, I'm just starting my relaxed square, Chris is still feathered. But more, Chris has somehow whizzed forwards and is now far in advance of Conor, and about even with me.



6. The disparity in blade angles between Conor and Chris has now become enormous (and while you get odd parallax effects, I don't think that's the explanation). Chris's shins are I think over-vertical, mine are vertical, Conor's aren't yet.



7. Conor and Chris's hand heights are still a little disparate but otherwise things are coming back together. Conor is saved from his high blade by a very swift and sharp catch. Chris, I think you can see from the vid but not these stills, does all his squaring between 6 and 7, which is probably late.



8. The happy ending. Stroke, 7 and 6 are in at (from this at least) indistinguishable times; 5 and 3 are fractionally late. Chris is still over-compressed, perhaps?

Conclusions, thoughts, directions for future travel?

Comments invited, of course, here or via email. I'd like to see other people's analyses. I'd also like to see what happens at rate 30, because one of the main things problematic with what I see here is that it implies we'll have a hard time getting cleanly to 30; if I'm wrong and we somehow blend all these faults, then it matters less.

1. Off the finish, I should sit back for a little longer and let the hands go away. Maybe Conor should not lean so far.
2. There are lots of points where it looks pretty good.
3. We need to get ourselves together on the portion from half-slide to just-before-the-catch.