[CUCBC Captains] Reminder about navigation and courtesy

[Tom Grimble]

**Captains please make sure all your coxes and coaches read this**

Dear all

It's getting towards the end of Michaelmas and races are coming up soon and
the early mornings are insanely busy as always. This means that EVERYONE
has to take responsibility to help things keep moving in the morning.

*1) Slow warm-ups*
It has come to our attention that many crews are insisting on doing slow
warm up exercises on the paddle downstream from the boathouses. This causes
queues of traffic behind a boat doing arms only exercises.

This is a plea to all coaches and coxes. Please avoid slow warm ups and
keep your crew rowing at the very very minimum *half crew-half slide*. If
you need to do slow exercises please save these for along the Reach where
there is more room for other crews to overtake safely.

Please be considerate of every other crew on the river when making your
training plans. Marshals will be noting anyone holding up other crews
unnecessarily.

*2) Navigation*
Please make sure that your novice coxes are fully aware of the navigation
rules (i.e. stay on the right except at the crossover points etc).

We've had a number of potentially nasty incidents along the narrow
stretches of the river where crews have failed to act before a collision or
blade clash. Please act responsibly and safely and *STOP* before steering
errors become a potential collision. Coaches in particular, please keep a
close eye on your novice coxes and help them out if necessary. It takes a
lot longer to disentangle 2 crashed boats than it does to stop rowing,
re-position and restart.

Also please be considerate of other river users in particular moored
residential boats. If you end up rowing into the side of a boat please keep
blades off their hull by pulling them in and use the fenders to push off so
you do not damage their hull or paintwork. Also please apologise! If you
hit a residential boat in the morning you have most likely woken someone up.

*3) Spinning*
Please keep all spinning to the set spinning areas (i.e. Jesus and
Baitsbite locks plus Chesterton and the bottom of the reach). Make sure you
do not spin in front on oncoming crews and please *spin quickly* and *get
out of the way* once you are round. Sitting in the spinning area just
leaves everyone getting fed up and cold!

*4) Early morning noise*
Our final reminder is to keep quiet in the early mornings. This doesn't
just include coaching from the bank before 7:30am but also includes keeping
your whole crew quiet while they are getting ready and warming up and
keeping the cox box volume low.

Oh yeah, and using a megaphone in the morning.... DEFINITELY NO!

Tom Grimble
CUCBC Honorary Secretary
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