Sea Rowing
This is necessarily less elegant than river rowing, because of the rough nature of the element on which the exercise is pursued. The oar must be held firmly in the hands, the inside hand being placed at (b), and the outside at (a), and both hands grasping the oar between the thumbs and fingers. The whole art consists in the crew moving backwards and forwards together, called "swinging," and laying hold of the water as well as they can, taking care to avoid pulling in the air with great force when there is a trough or interval between two waves, and on the other hand equally avoiding a heavy wave, which has a tendency to dash the oar out of the hand. All this requires practice in the rowers, and also in the steersman, called the coxswain, who should watch for the high waves, and warn his men when a heavy one is coming. He should also take care to cross the roll of the sea as much as possible, so as to avoid being struck on the side of the boat called "the counter," which would either swamp her, or else knock the oars out of the rowlocks. In this kind of rowing, the "feathering" of the oar, to be presently described, is not attempted, on account of the roughness of the water, but it merely is pulled steadily, but strongly, backwards, and is then pushed forwards in the rowlocks.