Tour du Leman 2006 It cant be done

This 160km, non-stop race round Lac Léman (Lake Geneva) was the first big expedition rowing challenge I actually rowed (rather than coxed) in. 

Completing it changed my whole mindset, gave me a belief in what I could do on the water, and taught me the No.1 rule of long distance rowing, as far as Im concerned.

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Event: Tour du Léman à lAviron
Where: Geneva, Switzerland
Distance: 160km non-stop
Time: 16h 23 mins
Boat type: Touring coxed quads (known as "yolettes")
Number of crews in the event: 19
Event Organiser: Société Nautique de Genève

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Why we finished up doing it
A club mate at York City RC came across a poster for this event whilst visiting a gig club whilst on holiday in Cornwall. It obviously had to be done.

Why it happens 

The event started in 1972 when the Société Nautique de Genève (SNG) celebrated its centenary, and each part of this multi-watersport club was charged with coming up with a way of marking the occasion. The "rowing circle" suggested the audacious plan of rowing the whole way round Lac Léman, the lake on whose western end Geneva sits.

Before the race

We were the first crew to arrive in Geneva, and were impressed that, as promised, someone from the club picked us up at the airport. The race fee also promised free accommodation in "dormitories", which turned out to be in the local nuclear bunker. We should have realised: Switzerland provides a bed in a nuclear bunker for every one of its citizens, and in times when theres no immediate threat that the superpowers might press the button, these are made available as accommodation for community events.

See, it was turning out to be an unexpectedly socio-cultural tour already!

Being a mixed crew, we politely split up into girls and boys rooms for the night, and went to bed. We heard various other crews turn up during the night. In the morning, our socio-culural education was further extended, when we realised that continentals just arent aware of British niceties of male/female separation, and that all the rooms had become mixed. Well, no problem. 

On the other hand, we did find the tendency of German rowing gentlemen to wander around in the type of undergarment sometimes referred to as "budgie smugglers", rather more than we wanted first thing in the morning.

But on to the rowing...

We prepared the boat the day before the race by taping up the riggers in case of big waves, and stowing vast amounts of bottled water, jam sandwiches, and other snacks aboard. And then enjoyed the pre-race cocktail party, complete with canapes provided by the in-house restaurant, who were clearly experienced at quite how many nibbles 95 long-distance rowers could pack away.

Crews sprint off the start, en masse.

The race starts when a gun is fired, and the assembled mass of crews, sprint for about 600m past the famous Jet dEau, across the lake before turning through 90 degrees to head out along the Swiss (north) side of the lake. Within a few kilometers, we were past the iconic UN building and the field spread out. Some of the lakeside towns looked charming; many featured little chateaux typical of the region. At Lausanne, where the IOC is based, we said "Wow!" at the sight of  huge Olympic rings on show at the lakeside. 

Somewhere between Nyon ("Nylon without the "L") and Lausanne we finally got the hang of sculling yolettes, which involved rating at 24 and just tapping it along. If you rate lower than that, as we had for the first several hours, its like picking up a floating sack of potatoes every stroke.  You have been warned. 

Navigation
To ensure that all crews really do follow the perimeter of the lake, the organisers issue a number of waypoints round which all crews must pass. We had a borrowed an old hand-held GPS, and programmed the various waypoints into it. Bearing in mind that this was 2006, and the iPhone was yet to be released, we found this rather tremendous, and enjoyed the count downs to each point.

Practising swapping before the race.
We didnt get much better at it.

Swapping strategy
Most crews swap the cox every 30 minutes, so that each crew member rows for 2 hours, and then coxes for half an hour. The swapping procedure is rarely elegant. And most of the jam sandwiches met a sticky end under my foot during one of the changeovers.

And back to the rowing again

The day was hot, and we made sure we were drinking plenty, but even so, by the time we go to near the top of the lake, we realised we had over-catered rather in the drinks cabinet, and poured litres and litres of the bottled water wed bought, over the side. Given we were due to pass Evian in due course, this felt somewhat like the a watery equivalent of bringing coals to Newcastle.

Around 5pm - wed done a good days rowing, and rounded the top of the lake. Except we still had to row all the way back down the lake, albeit along the shorter, French side, to our bunker beds in Geneva. Hmm. As dusk fell, we turned on our navigation lights, which allowed us to see what we thought were the crews in front and behind. But frankly there were several little twinkly lights in the distance, and it was impossible to tell what was going on. To paraphrase The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy: Lac Leman - its big. Really big.

As we headed away from Evian, things were getting pretty grim, and here I learned one of the key things you MUST know when youre doing expedition rowing (or expedition anything else, pretty much). When you feel so tired that you cant imagine anything can possibly make you feel less tired, including eating, which would require more energy than you can muster anyway, eat. You WILL feel better. Yes, it sounds obvious, But youd be surprised how long it can take the bring to figure that one out, if it doesnt already know, and is having to come up with it for the first time when its tired and hungry.

And then the batteries in the GPS ran out. And in their case, not even the offer of jelly babies was going to persuade them to make any more contribution to the trip. And the problem with this part of the lake is that there are all sorts of bays you DONT need to go into, and one you do, and we frankly had no idea which was which, which got rather stressful. So we finished up "missing a mark" although only after a rather confused, shouted conversation in French with the safety cruiser that was shadowing us, in which they thought we were saying that we wanted to "abandon", when all we really wanted to know was where we were. Maybe "Nous sommes perdus" has connotations of "All is lost" - we never got to the bottom of that one!

On-board entertainment
Strangely, the black comedy of this situation rallied our spirits and soon someone reminded us all how, when we had announced what we were doing at the club, and answered questions like "How many days will that take you?", one of the elder statesmen had pronounced firmly "It cant be done." Actually, we were all fond of the gent in question - whose name was Colin Jones, and having reached the stage where you have either to laugh or cry, we chose the former, and launched into rousing choruses of "Colin Jones, Colin Jones, Colin Jones" to the tune of "Ere we go, ere we go, ere we go." Really, it helped at the time, and youll just have to believe me.

Despite our best efforts, attempts to play "Today I went rowing and I saw..." didnt last for more than a few letters as the boys hadnt grasped that youre meant to "see" things in alphabetical order, so we were mightily relieved when FINALLY we rounded the last corner and saw the lights of Geneva spread out ahead of us.

It gets better and better
After crossing the finish line, and paddling round the club landing stage, we were immensely relieved to find kind helpers to help us drag the boat out of the water (still with too many drinks on board), and we were served with a 3-course meal - SNG are just the best event organisers in the world. Two of us fell asleep after the soup, with our heads on the table, and were mercifully whisked up the hill to the dormitories, whilst the other three made the most of the situation and ate our mains and puddings as well as their own. No point in letting a good lasagne go to waste.

Rule No.2 of long distance rowing (Rule No.1 is EAT):
wear gloves (this was the AFTER photo).

If youre impressed so far with the airport pick ups, the idiosyncratic accommodation, the cocktail party, and boat-carrying help and pasta when you really need it - get this - there was also a Sunday lunch provided the next day after the prize giving. Honestly, if SNG made lager, it would be brilliant.

A couple of FAQ
Q: You were on the water for over 16 hours. Er, how did you go to the toilet?
A: We all agreed never to talk about that again. So were certainly not telling you.

Q: Will you do it again?
A: At the time, the other woman in the crew and I agreed that we were terribly proud to have done it, and there was no need to do it again. Do you think we stuck to that, though? Find out here!

Vogalonga Why Venetians do it standing up

The Vogalonga is a priceless opportunity to row round the Venice lagoon, passing through the islands of Murano and Burano before making triumphant progress down the Grand Canal itself, and finishing outside St Marks Square.

Participants take to the water in whats probably the widest variety of different, oar-powered craft youll ever see in one place, mostly flamoyantly dressed, and as determined to have good time as they are to take on the 30km rowing challenge.

There were just so many reasons why we kept saying "Oo, look at that one!"...

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Event: Vogalonga
Where: Venice, Italy

Distance: 30km

Time: About 4hrs - it isnt a race!

Boat type: We were in a wide 4+, but any human-powered boat will do

Number of crews in the event: Hundreds

Event Organiser: www.vogalonga.com

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What does Vogalonga mean?
Literally, "long row". Voga=row and longa=long, not surprisingly.

While youre at it, "Vog" rhymes with "dog" not "Vogue". Never try to sound posh when speaking Italian as you will have got the vowels wrong (and while Im at it, "Latte" rhymes with "paté" not "Art A"). Thanks for letting me get that one off my chest.

A bit of background, including "focole"
When you think of rowing in Venice, most of us, myself included, think of the expensive, black tourist gondolas, and thats it. But when you think about it, what WOULD the average Venetian do as a sport? Not many facilities for football, hard to train for a marathon when youre turning corners every 20m and falling over tourists every 10m, and race cycling is clearly right out. So its actually quite logical that Venice has a number of rowing clubs, all tucked away off the tourist track a little.

A Venetian rowing clubs fleet of "stand up" boats.
And a Filippi double.

But when I say rowing, its not as we think of it, Jim. For starters, they often dont sit down. And they face forward. Why? Well, the islands of Venice - the main one, the Lido and the outlying islands of Murano, Burano and Torcello - stand in a lagoon. A shallow lagoon. There are various dredged channels through this that allow function as roads for the motor boats, but you could stand up in most of the square meterage of water out there. However, there are plenty of rocks strewn around this area, so if youre standing up and facing forwards as you row, you can see these and avoid them. 

Which is a lot better than putting a hole in your Empacher single.

The clubs collection of "focole".

Not only do you not get to sit down in Venetian rowing, you also dont have a button to lock your blade onto the gate - and to make matters even worse, the "gate" is a rather open-plan affair, and is basically a half-circle carved out of a wooden post called a "focola". Focole often have more than one carving in them - enabling a gear change, which is a natty idea. I think I saw some, though there isnt an example here, where there was a carving on the back of the focola - for backing down.

"16 men went to row"

About the event
The Vogalonga is not a race. Prizes ARE presented but only to crew numbers randomly drawn out of a hat afterwards. And everyone gets a little medal and a poster.

Rather, its a celebration of unpowered rowing in a city where the many commercial motorboats - "vaparetto" water buses, and the elegant but expensive water taxis - throw up a heck of a lot of wash. As a result, any human-powered craft is welcome in the Vogalonga, and this ranges from 1-man plastic kayaks, to the most extraordinary and unique boats, some involving large number of standing-up oarspersons.

There were also dragon boats, outriggers, a Finnish chuchboat, and many, many I didnt begin to recognise.

What to wear?

Note the white skirts.
Not sure what the rug trailing in the water is for...

As far as we could tell, the formal kit for a Venetian rower is white trousers, a horizontally striped top, and a matching sash round the waist. Which was obviously all fine until ladies started rowing. Now, your average Italian donna can get away with skin-tight white jeans, or even hotpants in a way that we Brits, with our Anglo-Saxon skin, cant even dream of. But despite apparently embracing female members of the club (not literally, doubtless some of that goes on too, but thats not the point here), it appears that certain traditions have to be observed, so lady rowers wear short white SKIRTS. Most of these appeared to be tennis skirts,  although I saw one lady who appeared to have been unable to get to her local branch of Lillywhites before the event, and had resorted to rowing in her petticoat. Well, it was short and white. Although it also had lace round the edge.

Boats came in all colours.
Sometimes with matching oarsmen.

And what not to say to a gondola-builder
Our team of nine were fortunate to have arranged to borrow a sliding seat, offset coxed four from a tiny rowing-more-as-we-know-it club out on the Lido. It was a bit battered, but ran nicely, although the undercarriage on one seat broke as we were rowing it across to the start area the day before the event. Fortunately, the place where the boats were being stored overnight was next to a gondola-builders workshop, so I approached the master craftsman within, brandishing a 30-year old, broken rowing seat at a man who makes utterly exquisite craft, that sell for up  to E30,000 a piece, and asked him if he could help us. After considerable sighing, some glue and some clamps were produced. It was rather like Fabergé if he could just slop some paint over a hard boiled egg. But we were back in business.

Onboard refreshments being served to a canoeist.

Out on the water
With nine in our team and only five seats in the boat, I was in "crew 2", and we caught the vaparetto out to the tiny island of Burano, which was roughly the half way point, with the aim of finding somewhere we could swap over with "crew 1". We quickly identified an ideal spot along the main canal that runs through the centre of the island. A large barge was moored there, with a group of French people aboard, who were preparing mounds of sandwiches, and unpacking boxes and boxes of chicken drumsticks. As the first crews approached, they would easy, and call up their food - and drink - order. "Do vin rouge? Certainement!" "Des sandwiches?" Bien sûr!". The French would then load the victuals onto a round metal bar tray, mounted on a long pole, and pass the order out to the crew.

Compared with the "no alcohol/early night" discipline of regatta and head racing, Id been fairly amazed at the cocktail party laid on by the organisers of the Tour du Léman the night before the race, but drinks DURING the main event - this was truly continental.

Anyway, we hopped into the boat, and headed out from Burano, further across the lagoon, and then through the canal on Murano, the glass-blowing island. Then we were back into open water again, overtaking smaller craft, and being overtaken by larger ones, all of them fascinating to look at. 

Steering under the Rialto is one of the most
memorable moments of my coxing career.

Finally, we turned into the main bulk Venice, entering a canal in the North where both banks were lined by cheering crowds. We soon turned into the Grand Canal itself, and lapped up the incredible experience of rowing under the Rialto.

The event ends in a complete frenzy with well over a thousand small boats gathering in St Marks basin, where it was incredibly choppy - whilst the man-powered craft might not cause much wash, a stiff breeze, and a massive cruise liner than had come in to berth (I think theyve stopped that now) made it all pretty rocky. 

Which, of course, meant that conditions were not ideal for the obligatory salute that boats make on finishing, which is called the "alta remi" or "high oars" - you take your blade out of the gate and hold it vertical. All of you. At the same time. And in our case, VERY briefly.

The "alta remi".
Well, some of us.

Unmissable
The logistics involved in the Vogalonga a are fearsome for Brits - its a long way to drive with a boat trailer, and even then, you need a character-ful boat to do it in, or youll just feel like youve somehow got into the Stewards enclosure at Henley wearing jeans. It would detract from the experience.

But if you can overcome these, you will be rewarded with a spectacle like you have never imagined, filled with craft, costumes and colour, good humour, numerous languages, and supportive crowds. YOU will be part of the Venice that the tourists have come to see. 

But do try to avoid being photographed in your petticoat...

This boat almost certainly wasnt made to
be propelled  this way, but why not!?