Coffee Table Book of: The Sport of Rowing (Paperback)

Coffee Table Book of: The Sport of Rowing is a large-format coffee table book of rowing, printed edge to edge in colour, one picture to a page and the widest carried across two: oars and blades, racing shells old and new and the parts that make them, boathouses, docks and racks, rowers anonymous in plain dark clothing, and rivers and lakes from misty dawn to starlight.

It opens with the oar and the shell: a pair of sculling oars on a weathered dock, a white blade dripping at sunrise, the varnished planking of an old wooden shell, a landing stage in river mist, a steel rigger, the sliding seat, white hulls resting upside down on boathouse racks, an old boathouse across a river at dawn, the white ball on a bow, shoes on the footstretcher and a rack of oars.

Then the river at work and at rest: a swan on a summer river, a double scull in silhouette at sunset, a weir, a slipway, a rower walking a dock with two oars at sunset, an autumn river with an empty pontoon, a full moon over a lake, thole pins on an old boat, an iron rigger with a brass oarlock, a waterman of earlier days rowing a passenger boat at dusk, a fine bow on glassy water, a heron on a mooring post and wet footprints on a dock.

Toward the end: a brass rudder under a varnished stern, an old megaphone on a riverbank, a rocky island in a still lake at midday, a start pontoon at the end of a lane of buoys, dew on a hull at dawn, a boathouse at blue hour with one lit window, old oars in a boathouse loft, a river in spring flood, lily pads at the edge of a lake, an autumn towpath, a river at dusk and a lake under the stars.

Short notes run through the book, on oars, shells and their fittings, the stroke and the crew, the boathouse and the river through the year, and the history of the boats: an oar's blade, or spoon, is 40 to 50 centimetres long and 25 centimetres wide, between strokes the blade is feathered, turned flat to cut wind resistance, thole pins give the oar a pivot: its shaft nestles between them, and the coxswain steers with strings that turn the rudder under the stern.

Printed in full colour on heavy 150gsm coated paper at 216 x 279 mm (8.5 x 11 inches), as a paperback.

Publisher - Cedar Pine Editions

Language - English

Perfect Bound

Contributors

By author

Dimitri Smith

Published Date - 2026-10-22

ISBN - 9671456004983

Dimensions - 27.9 x 21.6 x 0.6 cm

Page Count - 94