Peter is a man on a mission – a very big mission.  He is writing a comprehensive history of world rowing.  In fact, he’s been doing this for a few years.

Peter and has kindly agreed to serialise his chapters on our news page under the category “Rowing History“.

Vision for Rowing History

The book is a work in progress.  Here is Peter’s vision for the project
The whole point of my writing this book has been to preserve accurate representations of rowing techniques over the last 200 years and present them in perspective rather than isolation, to disclose historical patterns that have gone completely unnoticed up until now, to provide rowers and coaches with the tools they need to make informed judgments about their own techniques.

I intend to publish four volumes so that each passage with footnotes and references on the bottom of each physical page encourages readers to make volume-by-volume, chapter-by-chapter, side-by-side comparisons that just can’t be done without the actual volumes in front of you.

Each chapter is written and circulated around Peter’s fellow historians and co-directors who proof read and advise on content accuracy.  Additionally, Peter has been interviewing coaches worldwide in order to write chapters on Rowing in specific countries, at particular clubs and during key time periods.

Get involved

Rowperfect encourages all readers to send feedback to Peter Mallory directly – active participation in this project is encouraged. His Rowing Evolution website has the full project detailed, contact Peter Mallory.

Can you help with Peter’s Wish List of images and people he’d like to contact?

• Additions, corrections, agreements, disagreements,
• Photo scans,
• Introductions to other potential contacts Peter should be consulting
• 8mm and 16mm films of pre-1960 crews
• Films of Olympic crews 1920-1976
• Films of 20th Century American crews at Henley
• Films of Eastern European crews of the 1950s
• Introductions by email to Tim Foster, Jürgen Grobler and Donald MacDonald

The first section includes chapters from Volume I Part I

Volume I

Part I Our Ancestors

1. The Profession of Waterman
2. The Waterman’s Stroke
3. Eton College

Download from here

This link takes you to a dropbox shared web page where you can read the whole chapter or download it to your computer.  The file size is 8.4 meg.