DISAPPOINTED AUSTRALIAN.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XXXIX, Issue 12814, 13 July 1912, Page 2 (Supplement)

DISAPPOINTED AUSTRALIAN.

CRITICISES ENGLISH OARSMEN.

POOR STYLE AND SWING.

According to a prominent Sydney aquatic man now iri England, the Australian Olympic eight-oar crew should have a big chance of defeating the Englishmen at Henley. Writing to a Sydney friend he says : — "I saw the twice-rowed Oxford and Cambridge boat race. There was a rare crowd both days, but the course is very easily reached from London by train, tram and steamer. I was disappointed with both the style and physique of the crews. Cambridge particularly being rather a scratch lot. They swing their bodies right back m the style we used 'to row on fixed seats. Neither clfew compared favorably with bur inter-State crews. They deserved to swamp on the first day for rowing without washboards." It blew quite as hard on the second day, but having washboards on the boats they had no trouble: The newspapers made a great fuss about the weather, but there were only a couple of bad patches, and our men often row m worse. They always row upstream on the Thames, and with the flood tide, and as the rise is 12ft and the river narrow, you can imagine how it sweeps along."

Getting away from rowing,, the Australian says: — "Oh the lower reaches of the Thames the barges are " quitje a feature. They are cleverly handled by thejr crews of two, and; seem to act as general carriers for every conceivable kind of cargo. They - carry up to 100 tons of stuff, and are rigged with a heavy sprit-sail, the sprit being a fixture, and as big as the mast. When passing under the .bridges the whole turnout— mast, sprit, and -sail — is dropV ped back on the i- deck and rehoisted when the barges are clear again. There are thousands of them, and most have lee-boards for going to windward, but they never sail against the tide. They are to be seen all up • and down the English Channel, too. *I -was rather surprised when the pilot came off to the mailboat at Portsmouth m.. an old-fash-ioned sailing boat."