coxmate Jim Dwyer rows for the Western Rowing Club of Ontario, Canada, and he’s provided an excellent bird’s eye view of the Big L course on Fanshawe Lake – a path to be used for both coxed and coxless boats, and tips for manoeuvring your route.
Jim says:
The Western Invitational runs in mid September, annually.
You race a 4k BIG L with all of the crews in your event lining up on the start line and starting together. You then go back out for a 400m sprint on a four lane course seeded according to your finish time in the BIG L. Both times are rated against Olympic standard times and the percentages from the two races are added together to determine who wins the race.
The start is marked with a red line and the finish is at the small dock in the picture.
The coxie must steer a straight course to the first turn and because it is a mass start it would be advantageous to be in the lead when making the first turn so you can pick the tightest line. Stay close to the buoys between the first and second turns. The second turn is the tightest turn. Do not follow the shore after the second turn. Try to steer straight lines before and after the third turn.
Jim has won the race the past three years, (so he knows what he’s talking about).
To capture the images with a satellite he says:
I use a Garmin Forerunner 305 in my boat. This link explains how I set it up.
After the row I download the data and the software will show the path travelled in Google Earth.
The first pictures show a coxie steering an 8, the second picture shows the same path and I added straight lines from the google earth pat function. This shows the difference between the coxswain’s path and the most direct route.
