Seating of my hands

[Hank51]

I picked up sculling as a newbie a couple of seasons ago. I row 3 times a week, by choice primarily as part of a quad because I enjoy working together as a team in the boat. I have developed at least one flaw in my stroke that I believe is contributing to the quad pulling to port. In an effort to correct the flaws in my stroke I made the decision to climb out of the quad and into a 1X to try to identify and fix my issues. But now I'm all over the place - at times I'm pulling the single to starboard and then at times I'm pulling the single to port. I'm sort of shaking my head a little bit with my results in the single, and chose to believe that everything good [and bad] starts with the hands.

My in-board/out-board rigging with the oar collars has always been based pretty much on trial and error, maybe due to no one else in the club being all that close to my size [I'm 6'7"]. Beginning last summer I've been incrementally moving the oar collars closer to the handle to adjust where my hands seat [older C2 oars with non-adjustable handles]. At this point the oar collars are adjusted to where I'm seating my hands with the knuckles of my right middle and ring fingers touching the pad of my left thumb. I "feel" like I still have too much in-board? In attempting to determine how my hands should be aligned when they're seated, I read one source which indicated that maybe it's the knuckle of my index finger which should be touching the pad on my left thumb? Having said that, one of the guys in the quad who has gone out in a double with me in an effort to fix my technique has told me he believes my current alignment when my hands are seated is fine [I moved into the single because I can't ask him to keep taking time away from the quad to help me with my technical flaws].

The foot stretcher is even, there are no issues with the skeg, and I've moved in between #2 and #3 in the quad with the same results. At one time I was digging too deep with the port oar, but I think we fixed that particular issue a while ago. Thank you for any words of experience you can share.

[jamesg]

The 1x is a very unstable platform, but we have to take her as is. Wandering from side to side, never level and corkscrewing in wash and suchlike are all to be expected. Don't waste time on adjustments. Ignore it and don't stop. In a 2k race we have to pull at least 200 strokes without stopping, and this is just what has to be learnt. Takes time: but we may have 200 outings a year, while a single race is less than ten minutes. Perfection is reached only in the last week of training, if ever; and our opponents all have the same problems.