coxmate 
With the Australian Masters coming up in Tasmania in early June and Coxmate running the free SX trial at the regatta, we thought we would get Peter Hodson to give you some insight into the usefulness of a printed race graph generated by using the SX during your race.
This is the race graph for the Newington First Eight at the Australian National Schoolboy Championships in May.
The graph shows how the Newington first eight went in their semi -final and final in the Schoolboy’s National Championship in Adelaide, Australia, in March.
Conditions = good for semi and slight tail wind for final.
So what can we understand from graph?
They are obviously a good eight – they came fourth in final.
In their semi they were in front most of the way and wound down at the finish, although second crew was under a second behind.
In their final, they did a better time, had good push at ~700m, increasing rating by a point and pulling speed down by ~4 sec per 500m. The second major push at around the 1500m was excellent. The speed came down by ~5 sec per 500m and extended well beyond the period the rating was increased over.
Could they have done better?
Probably. The reason for this statement is because if we look at the graph in the first 250m and compare final with semi, we will see that in the semi, they rated lower and went faster. The tell tale ‘purplish’ graph at bottom, shows how the distance per stroke fell by ~0.3m per stroke in final. Also remember there was a slight tail wind in final.
The cause of speed loss was a lack of rhythm due to too much tension. We have observed this often, even in more senior crews. If we were monitoring the speed ratio (ratio of minimum to maximum speed through stroke – you need an impeller to do this), I would be very confident that the stroke velocity profile would show a greater checking of the boat on the recovery. My estimate would be a drop from ~71% to ~69%. This means the boat would be slowing down by 31% from peak speed.
They did well to recover their rhythm, but it cost an estimated 0.2m/s for around half a minute … 6m. The difference between third and fourth! The official figures show their first 500 was 1:25 in semi and 1:27 in final.
Coaches Opinion
We ran the race graph past Simon Pennington, the Director of Rowing at Newington and I have included his thoughts about the graph below.
“The Coxmate allows coaches to pinpoint the exact parts of the race where speed has either increased or decreased and compare that to the stroke rating. You can also check how well your race tactics were executed. The overlay function is handy as it can show up differences between two or more performances and highlight the strengths and weaknesses of each performance. We tend to use clearance as a measure of performance and the Coxmate has a handy reading for distance per stroke, which really highlights which parts of the race the clearance has dropped. All in all, the Coxmate is a very handy coaching tool.”
