We are about to start "seat racing" in rowing....but what does it mean?

Question

We are about to start "seat racing" in rowing....but what does it mean?

Answer 1

it is how the team will determine the line up in the boat. I put a link to an article that can explain them in more detail better than I could.

Answer 2

Seat racing is a simple but brutally competitive process of selecting teams where two boats race repeatedly over the same distance. Between each race, which can range anywhere from 750 to 2000 meters, the boats are pulled side-by-side. Two rowers are switched across and the boats race again. It is an imperfect, but effective, way of determining which rowers and in what order the rowers are in will move a boat fastest. Each boat has a consistent stroke (the rower in the stern whom the rest of the rowers follow) who most often does not get switched between pieces - but they can be. The rest of the boat is "fair game", and that includes the coxswain.

You'll do stretches of hard pieces (length to be determined by your coach), then switch rowers around and do it again. Over the course of the pieces, the coach determines who has moved the boat fastest and most effectively throughout the racing.

There are a lot conditions to be considered between pieces: effort and efficiency of the other rowers in the boat, wind, water (chop, current, and tide), course and other random variables. The coach takes these into account when determining the results.  You will seat race for a few days to determine your crew. And in a truly competitive crew, the results are never final.  You can never slack off because your coach can seat race the crew whenever he/she feels it's necessary and you may be bumped out of your spot at any time.

Seat racing can cause tension between rowers (Especially GIRLS. They get... "gossipy" and spiteful. Luckily you're not a girl.) Anyway... whoever has the best time gets the seat on the better boat, so your teammate becomes your enemy for a short time. Everyone needs to be pulling their hardest in the event that they are seat raced. Coxswains need to make sure they cox fairly, repeating their calls to the letter and not calling any moves. In the event that the coxswains themselves are seat raced, only then will they be allowed to cox normally; they will usually then be switched just as the rowers are. Alternatively, pieces will be done with and without the coxswains coxing. Many coaches just decide to pick their coxswains out of a hat if they have similar ability.

Anyway if you want a first person perspective, here's how Brad Lewis describes seat racing:

"Each workout became a series of two-minute pieces. After three two-minute pieces, the scullers being seat raced - one man from each boat - would be switched. Another three pieces would be rowed. Now for the moment of truth. If Quad-A was faster than Quad-B before the switch, and then Quad-B was faster than Quad-A after the switch, the man who transferred from A to B was the superior sculler.

To keep the seat racing fair, each sculler, regardless of whether he was being seat raced or not, had to pull his hardest on each piece. The best way to ensure that this happened, at least for the first few pieces, was not to tell the scullers who was being seat raced. "

Obviously seat racing applies to everyone, not just quadruple scullers. It applies to sweep rowers, guys with quick erg times, people of all different weights, and coxswains. The fastest person on a team needs to be kept honest during seat races, so he may be seat raced, though it may seem counter-productive. Along the same lines, the slowest guy on the team may be given a chance to take on someone that is much more powerful.

Seat racing is ruthless, so just make sure you're prepared mentally and physically. Good luck! ;)

Answer 3

In outrigger racing, we put two similar boats up against each other - so that there are relatively equal paddlers in each of the seats (in our case, 1 thru 6).  

We run a piece of a predetermined length (it can be a sprint or a longer piece.)   Run the piece, note the time for each boat.  Then, we swap (for example) seat 3 in boat A for the seat 3 in boat B.  Run the piece again, note the times.  

Let's say that on the first run,  boat A finished in 9 min. 27sec, and boat B finished in 10 min 10 sec.  You switch the seat 3 paddlers from boat A to boat B.  

In the second run Boat A finished in 9:40 - which is 13 seconds slower than it ran the first time.  Boat B finished in 9:45, which is 25 seconds faster than it ran the first time.

The paddler that moved into boat B won the race and is decided to be the stronger of the two paddlers.  Their boat still didn't finish first, since it was still 5 seconds behind boat A, but that paddler improved boat B's time.

We do these throughout our season to determine our top boats for important races.  All the seats are raced, 1 thru 6.