With this posting, Rowperfect’s News page joins Row2k in the United States and the website of the Italian National Association of Rowing Coaches, in posting draft excerpts of my coming new book. Many thanks to Rebecca Caroe for making this possible.
Details about me and my book project are available at Rowing Evolution. For six years I have been researching and writing a four volume comprehensive history of the sport of rowing with particular emphasis on the evolution of technique. In these last months before publication, I am inviting all of you visitors to British Rowperfect website to review the near-final draft. Your comments, suggestions, corrections, agreements, disagreements, additional sources and illustrations, etc. will be an essential contribution to what has always been intended to be a joint project of the rowing community.
All my contact info is at my website. I will also be at the World Championships next month on Lake Karapiro, and I hope to be at the FISA Coaches’ Conference in London in January. Or you can email me anytime at pmalloryATrowingevolutionDOTcom.
For six years I have followed the footprints of rowing greats. For six years I have gathered their stories. I have been their witness. For six years I have listened and read and asked questions and learned. You will notice that much of the book is in quotes. Whenever possible, I have let the participants express themselves in their own words. This history is a symphony. They are the orchestra, and I have done my best to be their conductor. This book is my special gift to those who made the history that I merely write.
More than a few of the rowing heroes with whom I have walked and talked and rowed are no longer with us now that I have nearly completed my task, but they have trusted me to speak in their place. I have done my very best not to let them down.
It is with great sadness that I make this initial posting to the British Rowperfect website knowing that one collaborator of mine in particular, Rowperfect inventor Cas Rekers, has just passed away. Cas and I never met in person, but he challenged me to create worthy chapters describing the history of his beloved Dutch rowing. He then patiently assisted me and encouraged me as I worked for over a year until he was satisfied. We all will sorely miss him.
The following excerpt will be followed at regular intervals with additional chapters for your review. As you would expect, the first part of the book deals with rowing in England where the sport began, and that has presented a special challenge for me, a colonist writing at a distance of 8,000 miles from the Mother Country. That is why your various perspectives will make such a difference, so I will begin here by thanking you all in advance for your contributions to this book project. With your help, it will be-come a fitting homage to all those who have made our history.
And what we all have inherited from our forebears is a wondrous journey.
Enjoy.
Peter Mallory
