METHOD

The present mathematical model requires as input the offsets of the underwater portion of the hull, the number of rowers and their average mass, the peak rowing force, and the stroke rates at different times during the race. It also requires the deadweight, that is, the mass of the hull and oars, and the mass of the coxswain for coxed events.

If the appropriate constants are inserted into equations (3) to (9), the equations of motion, (1) and (2) can be solved numerically. We use the fourth-order Runge-Kutta method with ten time intervals for the power stroke and ten time intervals for the recovery phase. We assume that a race begins with a power stroke. The power stroke differential equation is solved first, and the value of the speed, u, found at the end of the power stroke is used as the initial speed for the recovery phase differential equation. The value of u found at the end of the recovery phase is then used as the initial speed for the next power stroke. This process is continued until the boat travels 2000 metres. (Note that boat actually travels slightly further than 2000 metres; during part of the first power stroke, the hull moves backwards due to the rowers' motion towards the bow).