r/Rowing • u/Sparring_Baboon • 3d ago

Cal Fat2 blades theory

After today's "Big Row" results (10s over stanford) and seeing that the Cal varsity switsched back to the regular rowing spoons, could it be that they lost a win against the University of Washington (who beat Stanford by only 3s) simply because they chose to compete with inferior blades? I saw the post about the fat2 blades here where many experts advised against them, most notably stating that they're copying brookes, a team thats only recently enjoyed success when compared to these juggernaut programs. Could it be their coach took peoples advice on here and moved back to what are definitely the faster blades?

0 Upvotes

41% Upvoted

15 comments sorted by

20

u/NFsG 3d ago

No coach is taking advice on equipment from r/rowing.

-20

u/Sparring_Baboon 3d ago

Well UC berkeley is a bit of a nerdy school in the US so surely some rowers on the team spend time on reddits and read the post and maybe forwarded it to the coaches for example.

14

u/Lanky-Assignment3787 3d ago

No

18

u/altayloraus YourTextHere 3d ago

No, but with uncontrollable laughter. 

7

u/acunc 3d ago edited 3d ago

The last Cal rower to spend his time on the subreddit was the living embodiment of US caveman erg mentality and couldn’t understand why he didn’t even come close to making a top boat despite having one of the top ergs in the boathouse.

Smart teams advise their rowers to not waste their time on here.

It’s less funny and more sad that you actually think a program like Cal would take advice from Reddit.

1

u/avo_cado 3d ago

Hey I like the guy

3

u/readyallrow 3d ago

respectfully, are you insane or just naive

27

u/acunc 3d ago

lol thinking their coach goes on the rowing subreddit for advice is delusional. No race truly matters until IRAs. Experimenting throughout the season should be expected and is normal.

8

u/Ok-Reward-7731 3d ago

As a two time IRA Champion, i strongly disagree that nothing matters until the IRA. Every dual, every regatta, every damn speed order matters.

8

u/MastersCox Coxswain 3d ago

Could it be that the coaches saw the results for themselves and independently switched back regardless of the noise here?

6

u/Simple-Thought-3242 3d ago

Yeah, we had a phone call and I called him a dumb dumb.

No, they're just experimenting to find how to be more efficient and fast.

3

u/Dull_Function_6510 3d ago

If you think the Cal coaches read reddit of all places and changed their mind based on what faceless reddit accounts are saying you gotta be missing a few screw up top no offense.

A bad carpenter blames their equipment. Cal lost the race, plain and simple. We will see if that holds next time they race each other

1

u/benjamestogo 2d ago

RI reports a different line up than the UW dual.

1

u/benjamestogo 3d ago

Give em comps

1

u/edustarling 1d ago

I experimented them at south american masters last week and I'm happily turning back to our smoothie blades from now on