M.I.T., having started its rowing tradition almost a century after the sport had become well established in England, was spared some of the ordeals that accompanied the development of the early craft though it has played an important roll in the continuing development in the past half century. While every class of water craft of whatever purpose has gone through its own particular transitions for specific reasons ever since man ventured away from dry land.
It was not until the watermen of the English harbors made changes with speed strictly in mind, in order to improve the profit from their labors, that competition became the proving ground for those changes. Whatever the first craft in this category may have been, the first racing shell as such was the lapstrake boats used by preparatory school and college crews in England in the very early 1800's. Narrower than work boats but not yet narrow enough to require outriggers to provide leverage, thwarts for the seating of rowers and long enough for the desired number of oars. In the narrow and winding streams of England, which became the rowing waters of the sporting element, it was soon found advisable to have a man in the bow to give directions but soon this duty was given to the man in the stern whose duty it was to steer. Eventually a true racing craft came into being, suitable for its day but far from the current sophistication.
The reduction of width and depth ratios brought about outriggers. The short chop of a work boat changed to keeping the oars in the water longer and more space between rowers was required. Moving the weight of a heavy hull slowed the craft so materials were lightened and unneeded parts eliminated. To permit a longer stroke with the oar in the water under pressure longer the fixed thwart was changed to a longitudinal concaved board on which an oarsman sat with a copious application of grease to permit easy sliding of his leather-seated britches (sliding seat was a later American invention). Despite the British penchant for holding on to whatever has become traditional, the influence of competition brought continuing refinements which will never come to an end.
Whether before after the slenderizing of boats that required the use of outriggers, the weight of wood and fastenings in the hull became an obvious target for change. England had long since lost its home source of suitable soft woods before American materials and ingenuity had appeared and the first truly light weight shell was made of Papier-MachŽ, a composite of layers of paper solidified by saturation with a glue/varnish fluid which provided both lightness and smoothness but which suffered from lack of rigidity and weakening further by moisture absorption. This led quickly to use of thin pine and cedar as a skin fastened over a framework of pine and oak, which was the state of the art when Tech entered the rowing world.
This provided improved lightness and smoothness which, with a well applied light varnish and rubbed down with pumice did greatly enhance speed. An accompanying disadvantage of this construction was its vulnerability to checks or cracks brought about by hitting debris in the water (all rowing waters were also depositories for city garbage as well as construction or destruction scrap), as well as strains resulting from the forces applied to out riggers to maintain lateral stability. Leakage could prevented only by adding more varnish and internal patches, with resulting increase in weight and tendency for varnish and patches, with resulting increase in weight and tendency for varnish buildup to blister in warm sunlight.
The first improvement over varnish cedar was the application of a very fine weave fiberglass cloth impregnated with a hard resin which greatly reduced the possibility of leakage by blow or absorption though an increase in weight had to be acceptable for this security. After long years of living with the faithful cedar and varnish shell, the application of a layer of fiberglass whetted the appetite for further changes to achieve improvements in weight, rigidity, strength, fatigue, absorption, fouling and any other factor that would actually or theoretically afford greater speed. Proving that capability is always difficult given the ambiguous and indeterminate effects of water conditions, adjustments, combinations of oarsmen or even state of mind of individuals. But the hopes and trends were of in all directions and always will be as long as ingenuity is a human trait.
Lightness and rigidity being natural targets, along with any change in shape or alteration in drag-producing accessories such as rudder and outriggers, there were no shortages of places for a start. What at first might appear to be a good idea could quickly turn out to be otherwise. M.I.T., as might be expected, was perhaps a leader or instigator in this direction. In 1927 Tech received, thanks to an anonymous donor, its first brand new shell. Built by Sims of England, to specifications from Tech, it deviated from the conventional hull design by having its greatest width at #3 from where it narrowed all the way to the rudder. This was intended to carry the greatest weight and power forward and reduce drag from there aft while utilizing a lighter stroke to set the pace. But the "Avery H. Stanton" (named for the 1924 Manager of Crew) did not live up its expectations in speed and settled at the stern regardless of the lightness of the stroke or of the crew itself and became an embarrassment as a beautiful new shell in which no crew wanted to row.
Then about 1930 a group of oarsmen and naval architecture personnel started a project of developing plans for a shell using aluminum alloy skin in place of cedar in combination with redesign of structural components. This did not get to the construction stage due to personnel changes that left the project in limbo. In the mid 1930's, perhaps with no connection or stimulus from this adaptation of metal for skin from the earlier attempt, the Cambridge Boat Works operated by Cedric Valentine, who became head crew coach in 1937, constructed a shell of duralumin which was reputed to be the lightest eight ever built. It apparently was fast and compatible but faded from view and comment and nothing further regarding it has been discovered.
Again in the 1930's there was built an experimental shell about which specific knowledge seems lost and forgotten. That was the inverted or convex hull, which might be considered as some sort of cataman. With greater depth and buoyancy on the sides and arched to the center it was perhaps intended to be laterally stable an ride on a cushion of air. As to provisions for the foot clogs, which need to be low in the center, and other details no facts have been discovered, but the idea proved to be a disaster.
More recent, and more successful than these abortive attempts, have been the development of synthetic fibers, plastics, epoxies and cellular sheets that have brought new possibilities for lightness and strength that undoubtedly have been successful and have a long course ahead before exhaustion. Reinforced plastics using glass or carbon fibers and sandwich construction using a honeycomb core have all but replaced cedar hulls, sometime going beyond the desired improvement. A limber hull that can twist and weave can result in all the boating working against each other trying to maintain a stable condition for themselves. And one that is too stiff can send a tremor throughout the boat from a slight mistake or deviation and reduce overall performance. And while there can always be more reduction in weight, with to without live loads in e bodies of the oarsmen far above the shell, a point could conceivably be reached where some keel weight or ballast might be am improvement. Situations of that sort have a way of becoming very evident.
At all crew boathouse now, as at Pierce, the racks are showing more white hulled Shoenbrods, gray hulled Vespolis and varnished Pococks which stand out like pieces of Chippendale furniture among painted chairs in a kitchen. It is probably inevitable that cedar shells will be relegated to the upper racks as sentimental conversation pieces like classic cars or carriages. And as a further push in that direction, nature is no longer allowed to produce cedar of shell quality or spruce of oar quality. And the woodworking craftsman is replaced by molded synthetic technicians, neither of which understands or masters the expertise of the other.
Those who have had their turn at rowing at Tech may have particular recollections of noteworthy shells that could be recorded that they have more attributes of personality than other things. Such as the "Cornell Boat" purchased about 1920 by a Tech alumnus for $50.00 from Harvard after it had been abandoned there about 1902 by Cornell as unworthy of return to Ithaca after a regatta. Or the shell by the famous Harvard Henley champion of 1914, acquired about 1922 with a batch of surplus shells, which became the choice of the varsity in 1927 after the debacle of the "Stanton". A fast and comfortable shell though very limber and needing a crew that worked well together, it finished a race with Harvard and Pennsylvania at the end of the 1 3/4 mile course snuggled in the junction of the Union Boast Club dock, esplanade wall and Longfellow Bridge pier in a maelstrom of wind, wave and launch wakes and splinters previous year by Oxford of Cambridge, which came equipped with "Mary of Winton" to provide inspiration for comment and song. These shells were converted to swivels and eventually observed in use in 1949 at the Old Dominion Boat Club at Alexandria, Virginia. Or the shell that impaled itself on a spear of wood that acted like a bow rudder and caused a collision. And the two shells lashed together and re-rigged to provide a more sophisticated training barge.