Bracing

Rowing with control while breaking waves come over the side of your boat is a testament to boat handling skills. It’s also a heck of a lot of fun. Few things beat riding a breaker sideways, the boat on edge, rigger buried and shoulder kissing the side of the wave. For these stylish expressions of coastal rowing, a solid brace technique is required. Bracing is right up there with reboarding as the most liberating of rough water skills. When you master the brace, you can row through white-capped seas and heavy surf in any direction, with control and confidence. 

The technique is quite simple to explain, but of course takes plenty of time on the water to master. Here are the basics of how to brace:

You use your oar and body weight to counteract the rolling force of a wave. If a breaking wave hits you from the port side, it will create a force that rolls you to starboard. The brace therefore needs to keep you from rolling with the wave, so the essential part of the brace is to lean into the wave.

To brace, feather your wave side oar, and lay the blade on the face of the wave. Lean your hips into the wave, tilting the boat towards the wave and bracing oar. Drop your bracing hand down to your lap to facilitate the lean of the boat towards that oar and wave. Feel the bracing oar help support your weight in the lean while the breaking wave passes through you.

That’s it! Just feather the wave-side oar, give it your weight and lean into that wave! 

The artistry of the technique is knowing how much weight to give the bracing blade and how much to lean. Small white caps don’t need much – sometimes just a quick little brace with a slight shift of the hips will suffice. For heavy surf, you may need to commit big time – leaning your whole torso out of the boat and really ramming your shoulders into the wave while burying your bracing oar right up to the rigger. It’s all experience and feeling. You will learn to feel the power of the wave, and balance what you give to the wave against what the wave brings to you. When you hit this just right, you’ll find stability in equilibrium with the wave. 

Timing the end of your brace is another key element. Since you are leaning into an opposing force (the wave), when that force diminishes you have to lessen the force you are applying. The technique again is simple: as the wave passes by and its rolling moment diminishes, start leveling your hips and lifting your bracing hand from your lap to help push the boat back to level.

Another tip is to keep the non-bracing blade free of the water. In good-sized breakers, the boat will be pushed sideways, sometimes quite a bit. If you allow the opposite side oar to bury, it will trip the boat, acting much like a pole vault as it throws you into a hard flip. Conversely, the bracing blade acts like a hand hanging onto the wave face, functioning much like a sea anchor. As you let the bracing oar dig into the wave, it helps to drag the boat down, minimizing sideways drift. This allows the wave to pass through you, rather than carry you eternally sideways until you land in a lump on the beach. 

Finally, don’t give up on your brace! No matter what, keep holding that brace, even when water is pouring over your head, flooding your cockpit, and roaring in your ears. Hang on. When the boat gets up almost on its side and you feel your arm or even the side of your torso in the water, hang on. You’ll be amazed how far you can lean into big waves. Burying an outrigger and riding on your side is pretty awesome.

Here’s a photo sequence of me bracing in some decent-sized surf:

In this first photo, I have assessed the wave. It’s big. I’ve feathered my blade and placed it on the wave face. Given the wave’s size, I’m going big on my lean, putting a lot of weight on the blade and leaning with my hips and my shoulders too.

Next, you see my oar is really digging into the wave, getting most of the shaft buried, hanging on to the wave.

Still leaning. Outrigger’s going in! This wave has a lot of power, so I’m being aggressive with my brace.

Here I’m getting hit by the wave as it breaks. You see that I’m pushed back upright, even as I continue to push as hard as I can into the wave. Without an aggressive lean into the brace, the wave would have knocked me right over.

Oh yeah. I love this moment. The wave crashes over me… Note that my non-bracing oar is clear of the water.

This part is awesome. I’m in a hard lean, boat buried, water everywhere. I can’t see due to the foam all around and can only hear the roar of the wave. Just feeling the wave, feeling my brace, maintaining the dynamic awareness required to keep balance.

This one shows really well how much you can lean with a brace. I have the entire bracing oar under water, and even the rigger buried. The other, non-buried oar is held parallel to the water, trying not to interfere with the wave or the brace.

As the wave passes, I can feel its force diminish. Time to start bringing my body weight out of the lean and return to center.

Big smile. The wave rolls on, I’m back to upright. I only get a brief moment of triumph because I’m in a surf zone and the next wave is on its way. I have a few seconds at most to drain the cockpit and get some speed up before the next round of bracing as I take another breaker on the side.

The photo sequence above illustrates bracing in a challenging wave. Maybe start a little smaller. The technique is the same regardless of the wave, but the variations are infinite. To brace successfully is to feel the sea, and to respond accordingly. Small braces for small waves. Big aggressive leans for big curling surf.

Republished with permission: Ben Booth, Rebel Coastal Rowing.