Talk:The Boat Race/Archive 1

Race with the tide
Are you sure the Boat Race is against the tide? 16:19 over 4 and a half miles against the tide on the Tideway seems too good to be true. (I have rowed it in the opposite direction in Schools' Head, with both the tide and the current in my favour, and have never gone faster than 19 minutes - this year we are hoping for around 18 minutes.) Gingekerr 22:17, 14 Mar 2004 (UTC)


 * I am almost certain that you are right. Google search is not definitive. Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 22:56, 14 Mar 2004 (UTC)


 * Well spotted there. You're quite right. Now corrected. EddEdmondson 12:44, 15 Mar 2004 (UTC)

The statement The race is rowed towards the end of the incoming tide with the aim that the last of the incoming tide will cancel the effects of the stream and the water will be "slack" when the race takes place. appeared on here on 8th March. Is this really true? I thought it was timed to coincide with a fast incoming tide (much like the timing for the Head of the River Race where the first crew sets off with the fastest flowing water) The ITV coverage today suggested a stream of over 1 m/s in the direction of the race at the start, hardly "slack" water. Richard B 22:57, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

Title
Is "Boat Race" really a better name? If I typed in Boat Race (knowing nothing about the toic) I would expect to find information about boat races or a list of them. -fonzy


 * There is no article to be had on generic "boat races", I don't think. Even List of boat races would be dubious, there are so many different types of boats and races. Compare List of land-based vehicle races. I don't see a problem. Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 12:52, 15 Mar 2004 (UTC)


 * See Boat race (which is a redirect to Rowing) as opposed to Boat Race. Don't know whether this redirect is appropriate but the article seems appropriate for a generic piece. EddEdmondson 13:51, 15 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Should be The Boat Race as in the LOGO on this very page and website www.theboatrace.org. Jooler 12:11, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

It should definitely be changed. "The boat race" could mean anything, and I see no reason why this boat race is proclaimed the 'most important' ... I'd never heard of this boat race my entire life. It's only popular in Britain. Dr. Universe (talk) 16:58, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

Boats
What kind of boats do they use and where are they made can you get the same type of boat for individual use?


 * Both boats used in the Boat Race this year were made by Empacher, but there are a number of other manufacturers around the world. Most manufacters do make single-person sculling boats. Richard B 22:13, 30 May 2006 (UTC)


 * The equipment is standard rowing equipment, and there's a link to the sport of rowing, so I would say that there's no need for anything special in this wiki. 194.74.200.66 14:23, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

Rowers
Many people argue that some rowers are not British. Some come from the United States or Europe, but most are British. Interestingly, some students choose to study in Cambridge or Oxford to be eligible for rowing. Hugh Laurie, the English actor, is an example. Unfortunately, he had to abandon rowing because of health problems.[http://www.eduinreview.com/blog/2011/03/hugh-lauries-education-background/ Laurie studied at Eton and Cambridge. While he was at Cambridge, he was an oarsman and was very skilled at the sport. Unfortunately, he suffered from glandular fever and was forced to abandon rowing]

Images and paragraphing
At the moment the article seems to be mainly large chunks of unbroken text. It could do with some images and formatting to break it up a bit. Maybe adding in more sections as well. True Blue certainly deserves its own subsection with a link to the main article--The Spith 10:09, 30 November 2006 (UTC)


 * I've added images to the Course section, and dedicated them to the public domain. The article still requires an image of the start including the stakeboats. Pointillist (talk) 03:34, 30 March 2008 (UTC)
 * I've now made a simplified map of the course and uploaded it. I'll try converting it to SVG at a later date. Pointillist (talk) 15:11, 6 April 2008 (UTC).
 * SVG version now in place - Pointillist (talk) 16:11, 8 April 2008 (UTC)
 * The table in Course now has thumbnails for most of the landmarks, plus extra statistics and comments on the deep channel. Many thanks for User:TrulyBlue and User:Motmit for their feedback. The Course section might be over-encumbered with images now, so maybe a gallery would be a good idea? - Pointillist (talk) 13:02, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
 * I think if you moved the map under the lead image and set all the other pics to no px (default size) the table could then stretch across the full width of the page which might solve the problem. Your call, but again well done for the idea and effort. Regards Motmit (talk) 16:01, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Done. First I tried exactly what you described (see trying Motmit's layout suggestion in the history). Then I moved two racing images out of /*Course*/ and into /*Recent results*/which is where they belong anyway. Now it looks clean, IMO. - Pointillist (talk) 16:56, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Cumulative wins in table
Just out of curiosity - why were the number of cumulative wins by Oxford and Cambridge added to the table? It just seems to have made the table clumsier and uglier.

If there isn't a good reason, I will replace it with the old version of the table. - MykReeve T·C  14:51, 2 April 2007 (UTC)


 * I would agree that it feels strange to have that information in the table. -- Fluteflute Talk Contributions 08:52, 8 April 2012 (UTC)

Win Tables
Could the isis/goldie table be combined with the main table to state having to scroll through both? I'm still not sure how tables in Wiki work. --Nate 08:09, 23 April 2007 (UTC)


 * I've done this, also removed the colouring of cumulative stats when the totals were level: I thought it was a bit confusing, and didn't add much. I don't know if the section order in the results section is right, feel free to shuffle them TrulyBlue 09:38, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

Good Article
This article is clearly within easy reach of Good Article status. It would be nice to push it over the line. I think the main thing it needs is a thorough read through and tidy-up. Mrh30 (talk) 12:34, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

A suggestion
Hello to those that have this page on their watchlists. I would like to suggest that, in future, a request for temporary semiprotection be made the morning of the race. Changes were being made so fast that I messed up while trying to fix one - many apologies. Protection of current events can occur depending on the admin and this would help to prevent all of the nonsense that went on today. I would suspect that it doesn't need to be very long - maybe just 24 hours. Cheers to those trying to protect this article. MarnetteD | Talk 17:42, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

Media Coverage Section
Hi there,

The media coverage section reads a bit choppy and has some sourcing issue (one citation was to Amazon.com). I've put together a draft of a new version of this section here: User:RivBitz/Mediacoveragesectionrevisions. I'd like some feedback before making this change. I would greatly appreciate your input. --RivBitz (talk) 21:46, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

This looks very good to me, I suggest you add it! ;-) 2.96.110.245 (talk) 22:21, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

1945 race location
According to this source http://thames.me.uk/s00231k.htm the 1945 race was at Henley. It was apparently unofficial but so was the one at Ely as it was war time. Is this source good enough to add these data to the main article?131.111.185.5 (talk) 12:15, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

Tage removed
I have removed the tag because I see no sign of he issues mentioned and it is several years old. If anyone disagrees perhaps they could give more specific comments here. Martin Hogbin (talk) 13:39, 7 April 2012 (UTC)

The 2012 boat race
The boat race on the 7th April 2012 was hindered by the swimmer Trenton Oldfield, who swam between the boats, causing them to stop. The race was restarted from approx. 10 minutes in; however, the blades crashed soon after the race was restarted, leaving Hanno Weinhausen, the number six in the Oxford team, without a spoon at the end of his paddle. The Cambridge team won by 5 lengths, despite a protest from the Oxford cox Zoe de Toledo. After the race, the Oxford bowman Dr Alex Woods collapsed unconscious. Karl Hudspith, the OUBC president released a statement on Twitter that "Would like to start by saying that Alex Woods is conscious and will hopefully be OK." It has been described by the official Xchanging boat race website as "Possibly the most dramatic in Boat Race history" The swimmer has been arrested on suspicion of a "section five public order offence, namely behaviour likely to cause harassment, alarm or distress."

Separate article for 2012?
What do people think of the suggestion (which I also made at the Trenton Oldfield deletion discussion page) of starting a separate article for the 2012 Boat Race? And for any other specific past or future races that we find we have a lot to say about? We would avoid this main article being thrown off-balance with excessive amounts of detail about recent races.--Victor Yus (talk) 14:28, 10 April 2012 (UTC)
 * A separate article for al notable races sounds reasonable. Martinevans123 (talk) 14:54, 10 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Nice coincidence as I had been thinking about posting the same idea. I would suggest that any split off article(s) might be done by decade. I base this on the fact that if you look at the "Other notable races in recent years" "Notable races since 2000" section there just isn't enough info to support an article by year. This years race was extraordinary but even then the paragraph we have covers everything pretty well. My experience has been that smaller articles can go through an AFD with the outcome being Merge (Please note that these races are notable enough that I don't think that there would be a Delete result). Again I only throw this out as a suggestion and I would support any of you who want to work on the new article(s). MarnetteD | Talk 17:20, 10 April 2012 (UTC)
 * The problem is the appalling history section which is over-egged with stroppy Americans and Muttlebury. Here is are some of the interesting races:-
 * 1829: First Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race held on 10 June at Henley-on-Thames
 * 1836: Second race from Westminster to Putney
 * 1845: First Boat Race held on The Thames between Putney and Mortlake
 * 1846 outrigged eights first used in boat race
 * 1849: Two races Oxford won second on a foul
 * 1858 Steamer clips Oxford boat, damaging president’s rowlock. Cambridge later hit a barge but go on to win easily.
 * 1859 Cambridge sank
 * 1868 Cambridge’s preparations disturbed by death of the Hon James Gordon, who rowed the previous year and accidentally shot himself while cleaning his rifle.
 * 1873: First year the crews raced on sliding seats
 * 1877: The race resulted in a dead heat
 * 1883 - Neither crew heard the Go
 * 1887 Ducker McLean broke a blade - Nickalls said he should have jumped ship
 * 1888 Hector McLean, the Oxford president, dies of typhoid fever.
 * 1898: The Cambridge crew was waterlogged but finished
 * 1900: Cambridge win by 20 lengths
 * 1903 Half cock start with faulty pistol
 * 1908 Oxford president suffers from jaundice shortly before the race; his crew lose close race.
 * 1912: The Race was scheduled for 31 March but both boats sank and it had to be re-run on 1 April
 * 1925: Oxford sank
 * 1927 - Boat race first brodcast by BBC G O Nickalls commentator
 * 1932: The course was cut short by one minute due to construction work on Putney Bridge
 * 1938: BBC Television covered The Boat Race for the first time
 * 1952: Oxford won by a canvas in a blizzard
 * 1954: The 100th Boat Race. Oxford won
 * 1959 Oxford mutiny
 * 1960 Spade blades first used in Boat race and Henley
 * 1976: First sponsorship of The Boat Race, by Ladbrokes. Oxford broke the 17 minute barrier
 * 1978 Cambridge sink just off Barnes
 * 1981: Sue Brown was the first female to participate in the race. She steered Oxford to victory X
 * 1982: Hugh and Rob Clay were the first twins ever to row in The Boat Race X
 * 1984 Boat race rowed on Sunday after Cambridge crumpled their bow
 * 1985: Henrietta Shaw became the first Cambridge female cox
 * 1987: Oxford mutiny when some Americans  refused to row when a fellow American was dropped in preference for the English President, Donald Macdonald. Oxford, with Macdonald, won. Beefeater Gin became the official sponsor of The Boat Race
 * 1989: The first time both Blue Boats were coxed by women - Alison Norrish (Oxford) and Leigh Weiss (Cambridge).
 * 1991 In boat TV camera in Boat race
 * 1992: Oxford beat Cambridge by one-and-a-half lengths in the closest race for twelve years. Matthew Pinsent, 1993 Oxford President, and Jonathan Searle, 1990 Oxford President, won gold medals at the 1992 Olympic Games X
 * 1998: Cambridge fielded the heaviest and tallest crew in Boat Race history. Both crews broke the course record with Cambridge winning for the sixth consecutive year in a course record time of 16 mins 19 sec. Beefeater Gin’s sponsorship ended after 12 years
 * 2000:Oxford won the 2000 Boat Race after seven consecutive wins by Cambridge. Matt Smith became the youngest oarsman to win the Boat Race. Of the 12 British oarsmen who won gold medals at the Sydney Olympics, five had rowed in The Boat Race
 * 2001: Umpire Obholzer stopped the race for a clash Cambridge bowman Colin Swainson lost an oar
 * 2003: Oxford won by just one foot - probably the closest Boat Race of all-time given that the 1877 Dead Heat was recorded as "by six feet to Oxford". Two sets of brothers rowed in opposing boats setting a Race precedent.
 * 2004: Oxford and Cambridge clashed early in the Race. Cambridge went on to win.
 * 2005: Oxford won with the heaviest Boat Race crew of all time
 * I doubt if there is much justification for separate articles. Motmit (talk) 19:10, 10 April 2012 (UTC)
 * I read that list as a good argument for having a separate article! Martinevans123 (talk) 19:15, 10 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Certainly for having separate decade articles, or something along those lines. I would refer people to Category:Super Bowl, where you can see that every single SuperBowl edition has its own article. Perhaps the Boat Race isn't of the same level of notability as that, but it's still (for whatever reason) one of the big events in the Brit calendar, and I think many readers would be interested in the details of some of the individual races, to such an extent that all the details together for all the races would be too much for a single article. And there are some much more low-key sporting events that have their own per-year articles (Lent Bumps 2012, for example).--Victor Yus (talk) 19:30, 10 April 2012 (UTC)
 * (Goodness me, enough elitist trivia there to keep Trenton Oldfield in his speedos until well into next year .... but at least that article seems to have a useful knitting pattern.) . Martinevans123 (talk) 19:36, 10 April 2012 (UTC)
 * The 'dead heat to Oxford by six feet' story is a pure myth which the article explains. The crews were level to the eyes of observers at the finish and John Phelps said nothing of the sort. Sam Blacketer (talk) 12:10, 12 April 2012 (UTC)
 * You had better tell Xchanging > Motmit (talk) 12:28, 12 April 2012 (UTC)
 * They write 'reputed'; they are clearly passing on a funny story they heard, rather than officially pronouncing it true. The claim of "dead heat to Oxford" is in no contemporary reports. Phelps was certainly not asleep under a bush because he fired the gun to mark the end of the race when the crews crossed the finishing line, but he then disappeared for about half an hour. Reynold's Newspaper notes that an Oxford oarsman waved his blue handkerchief to the shore just after, which was erroneously taken as news of an Oxford victory "and flashed by the telegraphic wire all over England". Other papers report that the crowd believed Oxford had won very narrowly. But nowhere is it stated that Phelps gave any indication in favour of either team. A link to events 135 years later is that an Oxford oar was broken during the race, incidentally. Sam Blacketer (talk) 13:44, 12 April 2012 (UTC)


 * I think as a general pattern per-decade articles are the way to go. If there are particularly notable races that can individually support an article then we can have these as well, just have them also summarised in the decade article and use a link. Based on that list above only, it doesn't seem likely that an entire article could be written about every race in the 1960s for example. For some of the early races there may not be the detailed information available. Thryduulf (talk) 20:12, 10 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Just one more point about using a decade as the parameters for split off article. We avoid having to use a "stub" tag. This race is as notable as most other sporting events brevity (20 minutes or less) make it unlikely that there will ever be enough information to justify an article per year. Thanks to everyone for their input especially to Motmit for taking the time to give us a detailed list. MarnetteD | Talk 20:36, 10 April 2012 (UTC)
 * So if we go by decade, what would the article titles be? Something like The Boat Race 2000–2009? Victor Yus (talk) 06:13, 11 April 2012 (UTC)
 * That title seems as good as any. Redirects from individual years and titles with hyphens rather than endashes would be useful too. Thryduulf (talk) 10:44, 11 April 2012 (UTC)


 * Detailed articles should be per-year rather than per-decade. Grouping events by decade will tend to lead to improper synthesis because a decade is an arbitrary division which does not correspond to a natural cycle or period of the event.  As examples of comparable annual event articles, see 2011 FA Cup Final or Eurovision Song Contest 2011.  A boat race article for recent years will be of comparable length as there is no shortage of coverage.  Warden (talk) 11:50, 11 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Perhaps a start would be to rewrite the history using the material given above in place of the existing overload on Muttle (just one of many notables) and the storm in a teacup mutinies. I am happy to do this if others agree. Then others can expand the one-liners into other articles if they want. Motmit (talk) 13:53, 11 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Colonel Warden you are ignoring the fact that there is not enough information to fill a full article for each year. It is apples to ornages to peaches to compare a 20 minute event to the FA Cup final which is 90 minutes long with a full season of games leading to it with a months long singing competition. It is highly likely that yearly articles will get merged right back into this one with the possible exception of races like this years which had so many extraordinary events take place. Perhaps one of you could set up a sand box and let those that are interested tinker with the proposed article and we could go from there. MarnetteD | Talk 14:08, 11 April 2012 (UTC)
 * That is not a fact. The general guidance of WP:SIZE is to keep articles small and there is no minimum.  For example, "article size should be kept reasonably low, because many users edit from low-speed connections including dial-up connections, smartphones, and low-end broadband connections."  In any case, for any recent year, there will be plenty to support an article.  Such content would include details such as:
 * Timing and statistics
 * Team lists
 * Broadcast details
 * Race progress and incidents
 * Pictures and video
 * Graphics
 * For an example of a source which would support a detailed blow-by-blow account of a race, see Rowing News which, as you would expect, provides good technical commentary on each year's race. Warden (talk) 14:58, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

1920 date
The table shows March 28th (which would have been a Sunday) for the 1920 race, but the 2 reputable histories (Dodd & Burnell) both say Saturday 27th. I haven't been able to trace when the date was first added, but does anyone know the source of the information in the table? - David Biddulph (talk) 23:14, 20 November 2013 (UTC)


 * No response in 8 months, so I've gone with the reputable histories. --David Biddulph (talk) 10:02, 22 July 2014 (UTC)