As a 59-year-old Masters rower, let me describe my experience with RANDALLfoils. My wife (46) and I compete in the Mixed Masters 2x and in our singles. We prefer longer events from head races on up to full marathons. For Masters rowers, we train very hard rowing over 3 million meters per year (the bulk of this is on the water). We race to test the limits of our human potential, so results matter. A lot. For several years, we have had coaches tell us that to go faster we need to row more horizontal and stop going deep. Great, but how do we fix this issue? We have tried various drills and rigging adjustments, but we just couldn't solve this problem. About a year ago, I learned about Ian Randall's work and recently, I discovered that his foils are available for purchase. So we purchased two sets of foils for our Concept2 Skinny Oars with Fat2 blades. We have just completed ~150 kilometers of testing with the foils, mostly in our double but also in our singles. Overall, we are very pleased with the results. We no longer go deep, ever. In my single, I used to take an occasional very deep stroke with my port oar that really upset the boat, especially during a race. I cannot emphasize enough that the foils prevent this. Can you imagine a sprint race, where you go deep on the first stroke? That happened to me several times and it ruined several sprint races. While we don't focus on sprint racing, my racing starts are much better now.
In both our singles and our double, we row much smoother now. Our power is even on both sides so our boats are more stable. This gives us a better recovery. We are able to keep our blades off the water almost all the time now. This stability also yields more reach and better catches. Our meters per stroke are soaring and our splits are sinking.
At this point, it is hard to be quantitative about how much faster we will race with the foils. We will base our results on two upcoming head races this fall where we will compete against the same crews as in years past. But when we row better, look better and feel better, I am already sold on the RANDALLfoils. Sure, there will be skeptics who will doubt a 3% to 5% speed advantage for the foils, but what about the potential speed increases for those of us who do not already row like elite athletes? If anything, studies to date may underestimate the potential advantage of the foils for those of us who are more technically challenged by this sport. For instance, if I eliminate a 5-second loss on my first stroke of a 1000m race, the foils have already given me a 2% speed increase. That is a big deal if I am already finishing second or third in said regional sprint race. I'll report back in November after we have some race results.
Bob Symonds (Wichita, KS, USA)
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I will point out though that my above observations were almost instantaneous (e.g. they occurred since we started using the foils 1.5 weeks ago) in the sense that my wife and I have logged over 18,000 kilometers since early 2013. So it would be hard for me to attribute our sudden improvements to something else other than the foils. And clearly we are going much less deep as indicated by the tape on the shafts of the oars. In fact, we are now at the proper blade depth as discussed in Biorow.
That said, I am a PhD scientist so I appreciate your desire to quantify and thereby prove that the foils may or may not make a difference. My take is that there is a wide variation in rowing technique and fitness. For my wife and I, our main limiting factor has been blade depth; hence, the potential for improving our rowing technique and speed with the foils is enormous. However, some crews row with perfect blade depth so I do wonder if they will see a 3% to 5% in boat speed by using the foils. But quite a few elite rowers do pull deep. For instance, Mahe Drysdale is shown going deep in the following video analysis of his 2016 Henley final that he lost to Obreno.
https://youtu.be/jJlqo5G5kZc
He recently finished 4th at the 2018 World Cup III just ~7 seconds behind his teammate, R. Manson. Yet that 7 seconds cost him the opportunity to represent New Zealand in the single for the 2018 World Championships. Would he benefit from the foils? I definitely want to know the answer to that question.
Bob
