The art of encouraging one's crew is a complex one, but in truth Internationals and High Performance crews rarely need any more encouragement than the prospect of winning (well, unless you count trying to win the Diamonds enough times so you can seat six at a dinner party with their own pineapple cup).
The adrenaline rush of coming down the enclosures in the lead, on Sunday, then winning, is almost unsurpassable, on account of the noise levels and the proximity of the crowd.
For Low performance athletes, simply having made it through qualifiers and being on the course is frequently enough motivation to go all out for the race.
Rabbit's personal belief is that the lure of the pretty red box should be more than enough, however there are majorly anecdotal accounts of promises of money, alcohol and other ‘favours’ to crews if they succeed in winning the event.
Far be it from rabbit to comment on such matters or whether these methods have worked in the past, but he knows that the truth is out there...
Encouraging your crew (or any crew in fact), is of course one of the joys of spectating, as it gives the champagned up masses on the bank, a reason to pay attention to the racing. Choice expressions that can be heard down the course during the regatta include:
"COME STAINES..." "Heave, Heave, Heave..." to be chanted in the manner of the mice from Bagpuss, generally at losing lightweight crews... "RAH! RAH! RADLEY", Rabbit has touched on the subject of junior parents before and will now do so again, for they ARE the SCOURGE of the regatta, luckily you can generally hear a flock of approaching junior parents before they run you over on the towpath, as they scream loudly at their darling children while completely forgetting to look where they're going. Indeed Rabbit even managed to find Steve Ryder in Remenham during qualifiers, the year his offspring was competing for Maidenhead. "GooooooooOOOOOOOOOOOOO! *COLGATE*". (*insert name of team as appropriate) The cry of the American college/School supporter , and is generally followed by much whooping. Americans can be very odd sometimes...
