The Sort-of-deadliest Catch

"A crab is the term [for] when the oar blade gets “caught” in the water. It is caused by a momentary flaw in oar technique. A crab may be minor, allowing the rower to quickly recover, or it may be so forceful that the rower is ejected from the boat. Often, crews must cease rowing for the rower to regain control of the oar." -Rowing District Rowing Blog

If you’re a rower, you’ve probably caught a few crabs in your life. In high school and novice racing, that is something not too strange to see happen, but in the collegiate and elite rowing worlds they are extremely rare, the stuff of legends.

This crab was probably the most surreal I've ever witnessed. It was the 2016 American Collegiate Rowing Association Championships. After a dismal 1st heats round, my boat was looking to redeem ourselves in the repecharge round and get into the semi-finals. From there, we would be in good shape to achieve our goal of winning the B final. Right off the starting line, things were just going right. Our start sequence was flawless, our stroke rate was right where we wanted it, and we settled right in on working to take the lead. By the 1000m mark, we were inching up on the leader (the eventual B finals runner ups) and pushing the rest of the field away. Five Hundred left, you could feel it. We had the field running scared and were a 1/4 a length down on the lead and gaining. With 300m left our cox went to call the sprint, and then it happened.

Our 5 seat's oar hung just a moment too long at the finish on that stroke. He caught a pretty bad digger (small crab). He started fighting it, and just in time, ripped the oar out of the water, and leapt up to get back in rhythm. For a moment, everything was back on track. But it was not to last. The forces of the next stroke were too much for our 5 seat and everything caught up to him before he was back in time. He caught another digger. He fought it almost all the way out, but not enough, so his oar dug again. He fought it out once more, but still not enough. This time the oar won. It slammed into his ribs and bounced up under his arm. In an instant, he was bent in half out of the boat, up to his chest under water. Our coxswain froze up as the other 7 rowers stopped. Right before he completely left the boat, 5 seat lunged out of the water and reclaimed his oar. The crew snapped back to life and tore towards the finish. Unfortunately, there wasn’t enough race course left to get the job done, and we crossed the line last.

The next day we lined up in the lowest possible final and demolished the field. Without too much focus or effort, we won by open water. The disappointment was evident but the job was done. That is the true agony of rowing, so close… yet always so far. Despite all the conflicting emotions, that race will stick with me forever as the time I got to witness a monster crab during a sprint. That’s the stuff of legends, you know.