Re: Boat Race gets 7.6m peak

On 1 Apr, 14:39, Carl Douglas <c...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
c.an...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
On 1 Apr, 12:55, "Alistair Potts" <alistair.potts+use...@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

Various sources are showing 7.6m peak ("for 15 minutes from 5:15" - ha ha!)
/ 4.4m throughout the show.

The Boat Race people and ITV will be chuffed. It puts the Boat Race company
in a strong position with the contract being up for renewal in 2009, and ITV
will be happy too to squeeze more out of the advertisers. The BR audience
demographic is very appealing (the mean YOU!)

On the other hand, with the BBC blowing all its cash pinching F1 from ITV,
maybe ITV will be the only party interested...

Anyway, very good news for the race.

Indeed. Perhaps they turned off once they realised no-one was going to
sink. It's interesting what all the presenters meant by "sink" though
because I'd very much doubt that the boats used nowadays were capable
of sinking.

All shells will sink somewhat, according to the dictionary definition
"to descend, go lower".  They will sink a bit as the crew get in.  They
will sink completely beneath the surface if under-buoyant & swamped with
their seated crew in place.

Sinking is not an absolute term.  You may accurately say, "the boat sank
low in the water" or, "the boat sank until almost submerged".

Sunken boats may rise (the opposite of sink) when the burden on them is
lightened - as in jettisoning cargo as a last resort in a storm &
pumping out water to alter displacement - customary with floating docks
& various other industrial & constructional devices.

Only the real bastards among UK rowing's officialdom would seek (as they
did) to present the swamping & sinking of an eight which caused the
death of a rower as "definitely not sinking".

The real benefit of all that has been done over the last few years to
promote shell buoyancy, despite the ARA's cynical opposition at every
step of the way, is that top class eights are now made fully buoyant so
that they do not now sink below the surface when swamped but remain
completely rowable.

So I was amused to read the suggestions in pre-Boat Race bull*** that
it was developments in technology over the "last 30 years" which meant
that the eights used would not sink.  What utterly pretentious bollocks!
   Watertight compartments were probably a technological fact before the
time of Noah.  Only a technologically backward sport like rowing would
have taken so long to grudgingly accept them as essential.

Similarly I was amused by the implications that "it was all down to
pumps".  No, it wasn't.  Those pumps are completely incapable of dealing
with the kinds of sudden influx (several tonnes/minute) which swamp a
rowing shell.  What they are good at is keeping down the water burden in
non-swamping conditions, & at slowly removing excess water after a
swamping.  But if the boat was underbuoyant at the time the swamping
occurred, the pumps would be incapable of reversing that situation
without the crew first disembarking, since with the boat full to the
tops of the saxboards the water would always flow in as fast as they
pumped it out.

I do hope that aids clarity?

Cheers -
Carl
--
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- Show quoted text -

It will be a shame if ITV retain the broadcasting rights to the BR as
thier coverage is awful. How could they manage to totally miss the two
most interesting bits of the race, when crews were being rowed
through. I recall they missed it last year as well. Presumably the
commentators only get the same feed as the rest of us as they didn't
see it either. As usual I suspect the best pictures were on the radio.
.