WORLD'S SCULLING CHAMPIONSHIP

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 371, 23 April 1910, Page 10

WORLD'S SCULLING CHAMPIONSHIP

j Uill 1 l-ili l_i!.\--li iIJA. « I (15.y ICriio.-t Barry, in Answers). [ Although our» is me heme m' nnviiv. • il is thirty-live years >iin-e lle.i t I lie world's sculiiiig championship, am i fourteen years smce an Englishman com - peled for it. i know 1 am going U . break the latter record; 1 believe 1 an i going to break the former. EARLY AMBITIONS. 1 1 have always had the ambition to ui champion .sculler of the world, eve) since the day 1 started, as a boy, my apprenticeship as an oar and scul maker to Air. Norris, of Putney. As J stood at the bench over my work I usee to look out at the scullers, and wish that 1 couiu be them. And 1 didn'l stop at wishing. I took up sculling a: though my very life depended on it, and by the time t was sixteen had entered for my first race—a handicap at Wandsworth, in which 1 was accorded thirtytwo seconds' start. 1 set out with a conviction that 1 should win, and returned home with a determination to do better next time. Even as early as this race I encountered what we call the simplicity of the spectator. The spectator at a big boatrace is the most ingenuous fellow on earth. He imagines that all the time you .are rowing you are watching out for his voice, and when the race is over he will come up, clap you on the back, and cry, "You know when you were at •such-and-such a point? Well, did you hear me shout, "Now, then, Erny, spurt, man'? I saw you look up!" And, of course, you answer, "Yes; that's why I spurted!"—smiling inwardly. The spectator loves to think that but for his cheering you 'would be nowhere. It's half the sport to him. CHAMPIONS OF THE PAST. It seems a long cry back to those early days from now, when I am matched to meet Dick Arnst, the New Zealander, for the championship of the world. The last time the title was won by an Englishman was on November 15, 1875, when Sadler, of Putney, beat Boyd, of Newcastle, on the Thames. About six months later the Englishman was beaten by the Australian Trickett, and from that day down to the present moment we have failed to produce another world's champion. Hanlan, Beach, Kemp, Searle, Stanbury, Gaudaur, George and Charles Towns, Webb and Arnst, who have held the title since, were Canadians, Americans, Australians or New Zealanders, every one of them. Boyd, of uateshead, and Wag Harding, of London, in all these years have been the only two Englishmen to try, and they were beaten by Hanlan and Stanbury. So far as age and height are concerned, Arnst and I are well matched. Arnst stands 6ft., while I touch 6ft. also; in years I have the advantage of him by twenty months—if it can pe called an advantage. But in weight my rival has a decided superiority, for he scales 13st. to my list. 101b. In the earlier stages of my training I shall lose some of this, but in the latter I shall be sure to regain it all. Here I may say that I am extremely fortunate, in that I have never suffered from the sportsman's- bugbear—"nerves." When I went out to scull against Towns at seemed no more important to me than an ordinary pleasure spin at evening before sundown, with nobody watching. Possibly, that is why I won, and beat the Putney-Mortlake record by 31 3-ssec.

And what a sorry sight the nervous sculler is! You see him walking down the boathouse, whistling, "Let's all go down to the Strand!" with a face like a •funeral; and when some hail-fellow-well-met chimes in with "Have you a banana?" he murmurs, "No, thank you!" absently. Or else you find him clacking his tongue, or drumming liis fingers, or humming on one note. Don't put your money on him. He's a certain loser. If you watch a big race carefully, you will notice that each man resembles a sort of human cucumber, and that each boat appears to 'be travelling at' about a snail's pace. In fact, it is almost an axiom that the better the sculler, the easier his swing, the more slowly he appears to 'be travelling; and this will be doubly so on the Zambesi river, where the tide runs only half a mile, against the three or four miles per hour on the Thames.

SCULLING ON A LINER. The voyage over to the Zambesi will take about three weeks; but though I shal have a. fairly easy time on board, I shall not oe entirely idle, for Tom Sullivan, my trainer, doesn't intend that there shall be any "let-up" in my training. There will be two seullingmachines on board, in which I will take daily exercise, and, in addition to this, there will, of course, be a punching ball, and all that is necessary to keep an Englishman in fair condition. Tom Sullivan is the most thorough and painstaking of trainers. He tells me that in Australia, where enormous sums are lost and won over championship sculling matches., so careful are tho trainers that, to 'avoid the risk of cutting himself, a man is not allowed to ,ut° a slice of bread. That really happened when Sullivan trained McLean for the clnnnpiophip he won against Kemp on the Parramatta in IS9O. When I leave for the Zambesi I shall take with me three racing shells, while I have had 300 special planks of deal submitted to me from which to choose the material for mv sculls. These racing boats are delicately made, and require such careful handling that when ,-ent to a foreign country they are invariably packed in stout, aiul sometimes tin-lined, wooden cases.. They will be about 27ft long, 10% in broad, and about (Jin deep.

The outside skin of Mexican eedarwood is so tliin that undue pressure by the lingers will make a hole! Many scullers' chances of success have been ruined by carelessness. At the start of a race the boats are held in by stakeboatmen. who are supposed to hold them at the extreme point; but often a man who is ill-fitted for his work takes hold bv llie skin, and then his lingers no through. . Q oni" vein's :■!•:'(). when Air. r.l.ickstaii'e was roiripetiii.il in tile Diamonds at Hen\t>;• ii;;rain»t. a Continental anialeur. he -nU'ered in that -way. and only bv sheer -(reiiuth and pluck won his r.lce. When lie arrived at tile boatlioi'sr; 1 hproieihly . xlien.-ded. liis -dlell w.i.s lialf full of water. This was one of ihe most marveilo;:- performances rvei' achieved in Ihe annals oi sfiillinir.