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How rowing races work

Rowing is raced in four formats in Britain: head races, multi-lane regattas, match racing and bumps. They use the same boats but test different things, and they fall at different times of year.

Head races

A head race is a time trial. Crews start one at a time, a few seconds apart, and the fastest time wins.

Heads are long, usually between three and seven kilometres, and are rowed in the winter. Because crews are spread along a river, steering and overtaking matter almost as much as speed.

The best known is the Head of the River Race for eights, on the Thames in London each March.

Multi-lane regattas

This is the Olympic format. Six or eight crews line up in buoyed lanes on still water and race 2,000 metres. The first across the line wins.

A large event runs heats, sometimes repechages for crews that lose their heat, then semi-finals and finals. Britain’s main multi-lane regattas are held at Dorney Lake, including the Metropolitan and Marlow.

Match racing

On a river there is rarely room for more than two or three boats abreast. River regattas therefore run as knockouts: two crews race, the winner goes through and the loser is out.

Henley Royal Regatta is the best known example. Most British regattas work the same way, over courses of anything from 500 to 1,500 metres.

Match racing rewards a fast start. A crew that gets ahead can watch its opponent and respond to every push.

Bumps

Bumps racing was invented for rivers too narrow to race side by side. It survives at Oxford and Cambridge.

Crews start in a line with a fixed gap between them. Each tries to catch and touch the boat in front, which is a bump. The two crews then swap places for the next day’s racing. After four days the crew at the top of the first division is Head of the River.

How a side-by-side race unfolds

Most races follow the same shape.

  1. The start. Crews take short, fast strokes to get the boat moving, at 45 strokes a minute or more.
  2. The settle. After about a minute the rate drops to a pace the crew can hold.
  3. The middle. Crews make planned pushes of ten or twenty hard strokes to gain or defend a lead.
  4. The finish. The rate comes back up for the last 250 metres or so.

Who is in charge

An umpire follows each race, by launch or from the bank. The umpire starts the race, warns crews that leave their water and can disqualify a crew that causes a clash.

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