ROWING TANKS Getting the Most Value From Indoor Rowing Tanks WORDS JAMES DREHER // PHOTOGRAPHY SCOTT WEAVER
K-State University 2013, 2-Pool, 16-station: The water moves just fine when Athletes Power The Tank
I. ATHLETE POWERED or PUMP ASSISTED TANKS? To move, or not to move water, that is the question In 40 years of Rowing at K-State the
women’s team had their best year ever this spring. However, due to the long winter and windy conditions they only had 9 days on the water from November though the racing season! Coach Patrick Sweeney did a great coaching job to compensate for this disadvantage, but he had the training tools needed to succeed with almost no water time. The signature tool is his new state-of-the- art indoor training facility, the Dreher 16-station, two-pool, sweep only tank! A rowing tank in many ways is the
exact opposite of the boat. In order to achieve as close a simulation as possible to the force curve that is experienced in the boat the rowing mechanism kinematics, including the blade size,
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outboard dimensions of the oar, the spread of the swivels, etc., must be modified slightly to allow the blade to move relative to the water. In operation the water in the tank is not “dead”, as some like to say, but it is very much alive, and is used to resist the rower’s force, just in a different way than in the boat. Coach Sweeney of K-State would not want it any other way. In mechanically assisted tanks, it is too easy for the athletes to “just drift along” with the flow. Not only was his crew able to work on technique, but also on simulating parts of the race in the tank. In the tank the rower must move
water, but the blade also must also be able to “slip” relative to the water in the pushing direction to limit the force on the blade to match the in-the-boat experience. This is a conundrum due to the fact that in the boat we do not want the blade to slip at all in the boat travel
ROW360 // Issue 001
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