race is ordained to pass through the centre or the Middlesex arch of Barnes Bridge. Once through Bames Bridge, the course should sheer in (if the centre arch has been taken) until the boat lies as if it had taken the shore arch, Tt should attain this position by the time it breasts the ‘White Hart.’ The river js here a horseshoe to the finish, In linear measure a boat on the Middlesex side has nearly two lengths less to travel than the one outside it between Bames Bridge and the ‘Ship.’ The tide runs nearly as well within sixty feet of the shore as in mid- river at this point, hence it pays to keep about that distance from the Middtcsex bank.
The old Thames watermen who instruct young pilots over the Putney course are often inclined to run too much in the grooves which were good in their younger days, when they them- selves were racing on the river. Their instruction would be sound enough if the features of the river had not undergone change, as aforesaid, in sundry details. The repeated blunders of navi- gation lately seen perpetrated by watermen as well as amateurs between Craven Steps and Hammersmith make us Jose much faith in watermen’s tuition for steering the metropolitan course. We would rather entrust a young pilot to some active mem- ber of the London or Thames Rowing Clubs. These gentlemen know the river well cnough as it now is, and are not biassed by old memories of what it once was but is no longer.
University coxswains haye easier tasks in these days than their predecessors before 1868, Until the Thames Conservancy obtained statutory powers in 1868 to clear the course for boat- racing, it used to be a ticklish matter to pick a safe course on a flood tide. There would be strings of barges towed, and many more sailing, others ‘sweeping,’ up riyer. Traffic did not stop for sport. Coxswains oflen found themselves in awkward pre- dicaments to ayoid such itinerant craft, more so when barges were under sail against a head wind, and were tacking from shore to shore, In 1866 a barge of this sort most seriously interfered with the Cambridge crew in Horse Reach, just when Oxford had, after a stern race, given them the go-by off the
