How are boats & lineup decisions made?

Utah Crew strives to field the most competitive boats in each race, while allowing all members of the racing team to participate. Decisions about crew personnel are based on many factors. Weight adjusted erg scores give a general idea of how individual rowers compare. Seat racing, speed of a lineup during practice, how well the rowers in a boat mesh together, ages of the athletes and the schedule of events at a particular regatta are all considered when making boat assignments. Athletes may be switched out of a boat if it is the coaches opinion that absences, illness or injury close to a scheduled regatta may impact the boat’s race performance by limiting the crews opportunity to practice together. The coaches have final discretion on boat assignments.

Athletes on the racing team will have erg tests approximately once a month. The purpose of erg testing is threefold: to train athletes on how to pace themselves for optimal performance during a race, to track an athlete’s improvement over time, and to compare athlete performance with their peers. Decades of experience has shown that weight adjustment of erg scores gives a better estimate of an athlete’s speed on the water than raw erg scores. Utah Crew recommends that athletes try to improve their erg scores by increasing strength by gaining muscle mass and improving fitness rather than by weight loss.

Occasionally Utah Crew will take only select crews to a regatta. These are events where participation is limited by the regatta directors to specific boat classes or qualifying crews only. For example, the San Diego Crew Classic only has quadruple sculls and eights events. Entries for Youth Nationals must qualify by being in the top four finishers in the Grand Final in an event at the Southwest Regional Championships. In these cases only some of our athletes will be able to participate. These athletes will be chosen using the above selection criteria as circumstances permit.