THE BOAT RACE FIASCO
[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] • Sift,—You might like to publish a few remarks on the unfor- tunate Boat Race of this year by an old rowing man. The state of the water when the race started was undoubtedly bad, but it was not bad enough to make anyone expect disaster for either of the boats—even though a most inop- portune squall which arrived about the time of the start made the water worse than at any other time of the day. Mr. F. I. Pitman, the umpire, had seriously considered the proposal made to him that the stake boats should be moved nearer to the Middlesex shore (which was the sheltered shore), but on the whole he concluded that the conditions were not bad enough to justify this unusual alteration. We are all sorry now that this was not done, but in past years the crews have often rowed the course under equally bad conditions without sinking. Although Oxford, having lost the toss, had considerably worse water in front of them at the start than Cambridge had, I attribute the waterlogging of their boat chiefly to the boat itself.
I am not saying anything against Dr. Bourne's streamline model as such. The boat is unquestionably fast. All the same, I am sure that Oxford were underboated. Although underboating does not matter in smooth water the loss of buoyancy in bad water is most serious. At the end of the race Cambridge emptied a fair amount of water out of their boat, but not more than is usual on what may be called a baddish (lay. A boat three to four feet longer than the Oxford boat would probably not have got into real difficulties even in the water which Oxford experienced. On the tideway it is better to be overboated than underl)oated.
In any case, owing to the water in front of them at the start, Oxford were heavily handicapped. If they had followed tactics which have not been unknown in the past, and which sometimes have brought success, they would have been content to fall behind at first, following Cambridge into the shelter of the Middlesex shore. When they emerged from the bad water at Hammersmith, or a little later, they would have made their great effort with the Surrey station all in their favour. No doubt it takes an exceptional crew to do that—a crew thoroughly confident of itself and one so experi- enced that it can change from rowing to paddling and back again to rowing without disorganization. Perhaps neither crew this year could have performed such a feat. Those, however, would have been the ideal tactics.
As it was, the way in which the crews diverged from one another at the start was almost ludicrous. Cambridge went straight for the Middlesex shore as though they were trying to ram the wall, but Oxford held on a conventional course almost up the middle of the river. Oxford even without falling behind Cambridge could have got appreciably more shelter than they did.
That veteran oarsman, Mr. Guy Nickalls, has said that, though Mr. Pitman is as impartial as anybody could possibly be, it would be better to have a neutral umpire. Mr. Pitman is, of course, a Cambridge man. If Mr. Nickalls proposed a neutral umpire for Henley there might be something in his suggestion ; for Henley is an international Regatta and we have to consider the feelings of foreigners who do not quite understand our ways. Here, however, those ways are sufficiently understood ; and I imagine that a change in the umpire at the Boat Race would probably be disliked even more by Oxford than by Cambridge. At the start of the race this year, Mr. Pitman went out of his way to warn the Cambridge cox not to push Oxford into bad water. It was, I think I am right in saying, no part of his duties as an umpire to offer any warning, but his action was a proof of the horror which passed through his mind at the idea of his own Univer- sity getting any advantage even by more or less legitimate means.
The Rev. Sidney Swann, in a letter to the Times, has said that the boats could be kept free of water (and would not need the football bladders which were used this year to keep them afloat) if they were fitted with small pumps to be used by the coxswains. He reveals the fact that in 1920 Cambridge actually used a pump. If pumps are to be used regularly this should be ri" matter of negotiation and agreement. It
would be absurd if one boat in bad weather rowed the race half full of water, and the other with an efficient pump went ahead with its buoyancy unimpaired.
The best way to ensure a fair start would be to make a rule that in future the stake boats shall be placed as near as possible to the bank off which the wind is blowing.—I am,
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