Where can you find an up-to-date discussion on the relative merits of Concept II and III ergs; results of the latest small boats head or minute-by-minute from the World Champs; information on where to row if you just happen to be visiting South Africa; advice on lightweight dieting, or comments on the entertaining number of false starts at FISA events? Welcome to rec_sport_rowing, the Usenet home of our sport.
RSR, as it is commonly called, is a newsgroup on the Internet, the "network of networks", which spans the globe and links universities to cities to small villages: anyone with a computer modem can join the fun. The newsgroups are international bulletin boards to which anyone with net access may "post" a message, in the time it takes to type it. RSR was set up in 1993, as a rec_boats_paddle offshoot, created when the acrimonious "flame wars" between rowers and canoeists became too hot to handle. RSR now receives several dozen posted messages each day, and acts as a forum for the exchange of information and views around the world.
By calling up the RSR index on a computer screen, you can read recent articles, post a public comment of your own, or send a private email message to the author of an article. Regular items for discussion are training and coaching techniques, tips on steering and racing, and anecdotal (and sometimes apocryphal) stories of bumps racing, sculling upsets and the peculiar fondness of water-fowl for boat club rafts. Most of the traffic on RSR originates from the UK and North America, but the group is read all over the world. For those too shy to contribute an opinion, there is the option of "lurking": many thousands of rowers read every article posted but never write a word. Others, from novices to champions, regularly have their say.
The uses of RSR are many and various. UK posters tend to publish race results and stir up contentious discussions. Queries are answered daily about rigging, training and coaching at all levels: a FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) list of these answers is regularly updated. Developments in the world of international rowing attract instant comment, fuelled perhaps by the knowledge that what is being tested at the top of the sport will soon filter down to club level. From the States, coaching jobs are advertised, pairs partners matched and USRowing, the equivalent of the ARA, has an email address and regularly contributes. Most readers can also obtain access to the World-Wide Web, an information-storage system, and there are two linked rowing web pages maintained in the UK, from Oxford and London, onto which the FAQ and other info from RSR is regularly downloaded. An address list has been created to hold contact details for hundreds of rowers and clubs, and in the near future this may be turned into a www map, from which information could be retrieved at the click of a button. The organisation of several regattas has been speeded by the Internet, and RSR metamorphosed into a travel agency this summer when roving oarsmen and women found places to stay, ergs and boats to borrow from Henley to Tokyo and Indianapolis.
As of this issue, REGATTA is joining the Internet, albeit indirectly for the moment. Letters to the Editor and contributions to the magazine may be emailed to quarrell@vax.ox.ac.uk. This address can also forward email articles and queries to RSR or the web pages, for those without direct netnews access, but it is not a mailing list. Please mark messages "regatta", "redirect rsr" or "redirect web" as appropriate.
Let the Internet beware - REGATTA's Webfoot is lurking, and we are paddling into the 21st century.... Watch this space.
--
"He could think in italics. Such people need watching.
Preferably from a safe distance."
(TP, M@A).