Horological Meandering

Precision Timing: Parmigiani take over as Timing Sponsor of The Boat Race. 

By: Andrew H

 

Parmigiani took over the timing for the Oxford-Cambridge Boat Race for the first time this year.

The Boat Race is one of the more particular events of the English sporting calendar. There should be no rational reason as to why a private duel, between England’s two most elite universities would warrant a following on the day; or indeed a world-wide television audience that rivals most prestigious international sporting events. It is remarkable that around a quarter of million people watch the race along the banks of the Thames; television viewing is reportedly around 15 million worldwide.

However, the Boat Race has become part of folklore. Part of it might be an excuse to go down to a local river pub to while away the afternoon with a drink in hand and a rival Blue at your elbow. No one is ever impartial: you will always choose light or dark blue. Even people with no association whatsoever tend to choose one shade of blue. However, the weather in London in spring is variable (to say the least), and the crews and spectators can suffer alike. The river can go from the stillness of a mill pond to white-capped waves in a matter of seconds.  

 
[The thronging crowd at the Boathouses at Putney] 

Parmigiani rose to the grand occasion by hosting friends and patrons at the Winchester Club in Putney (just alongside the start line). Generally, the watch firm from Fleurier have chosen to put their sponsorship into one of the oldest and most venerated sports. Rumour has it when Pierre de Coubertin was setting up the Olympics he based the organization of the new Olympic body on the Henley Stewards. 

Parmigiani has, over the last couple of years, become increasingly involved in the sport of rowing. Starting with the Parmigiani Spirit Award (that initially went to Jamie Cook - rowing in the Number Seven seat of this year's Oxford crew) to young rowers, Parmigiani has also sponsored Leander Rowing Club (the world’s oldest and most successful sporting club). Although other timing partners have come and gone, it is Parmigiani’s stated intent to remain part of the proceedings at the Boat Race in the near future. 

 
[Every possible lamp post is adorned with light and dark blue colours. The crowds on Putney Bridge looking down at the start] 

The Boat Race, for a watch firm committed to the sport, is an ideal event. How better to showcase watches, and chronographs at that, where tuning and and precision mechanics are the perfection of the basic elements of speed and perseverance that the sport personifies; and that are inherent in watchmaking too. To quote Michel Parmigiani on the subject: “In watchmaking, the required precision of a hand’s movement can be as small as three hundredths of a millimetre. A watchmaker must train each gesture relentlessly; he must practice again and again until his brain and his hands achieve the perfect motion.” Michel went on to add that watchmaking had a “… close affinity to rowing because in involves the same self-control, focus and training that are fundamental as a watchmaker.” 

 

However, the cross-over might go deeper than the “mechanism” tie-in. The Boat Race is about as necessary to the modern world of rowing as the mechanical watch is to time keeping. There are other rowing races; other ways of knowing what the time is. But that’s not the point. The point is the connection: that connection to an event or a method of manufacture that reminds a person of the skill, perseverance, precision, and the wish to see the task through.  

 

Timing for the Boat Race is everything. Timing is absolute. There is a saying in rowing eights: you are as strong as your weakest person. The requirement for an eight is that all oarsmen row in exact unison; if even one of them is slightly out of time, the boat will slow and you will lose (if the two crews are otherwise closely matched)! The basic rowing stroke is mechanical; but requires complete precision. Precision with the eight blades determines both speed and continuity. All eight blades must enter in unison (at the catch), exit in unison, feather (blade is turned horizontal), and square (blade is rotated vertical to enter the water) at exactly the same moment. The pressure and power must equally be applied in unison during the time the oar is in the water. Precision timing from mechanics; sounds familiar doesn’t it! This applies even more when the race is a close fought duel over 4 miles of a tidal river where conditions can vary from one minute to the next. 

 

But timing goes further than simply training to get the crew in synchronized form. Time starts as soon as Boat Race finishes! For the winning crew there is talk of continuing form and victory next year. For the losing crew, there is talk of changing certain elements and of revenge! For the students remaining next year, there will be training throughout the summer. Where necessary and where available, new oarsmen will be sought out and induced to study at Oxford or Cambridge for a year or two.  

 

The Boat Race owes its origins to an age when sporting competitions were more an act of attrition, endurance and potential brutality, as well as sporting acumen and technical skill. Long-lost sporting past times such as bare-knuckle boxing and bull baiting were considered fair! Bare-knuckle boxing was actually illegal, but that did not stop matches, a Championship, and a number of wealthy patrons! There were no formal rules for football! You agreed them before the match and they could change the next time the two sides met. This allowed William Webb Ellis, in the spirit of the chaotic rules of football to pick the ball up and run with it at Rugby School in 1823.

Rowing was considered a professional sport or more accurately, an occupation: although it was limited to individuals who were required to fight it out on a long stretch of river. The individuals concerned were usually “watermen”(who were both the taxi service and goods delivery people of their day). The matches would attract crowds in the thousands and the prize money and wagers would make for a considerable reward for the winner. The most famous of such races still exists today; although it no longer draws the crowds it once did. Organized by the London Guilds and Livery Companies: “Doggett's Coat and Badge” was first contested in 1715 and is still held annually from London Bridge to Chelsea. Henley Royal Regatta was established around the same time in 1839; however, it was noted as one of the first regulated sporting competitions in existence. 

 

It was into such a sporting atmosphere that two old Harrovian friends: at Cambridge and at Oxford challenged the other in eight-oared boats in 1829. First rowed at Henley, the race transferred to the Tideway in 1839 and has remained on the “Championship Course” since then. The race course (known as the “Championship Course”) is not only held on a tidal river, but the river is open to the elements, and other than a few simple rules and the decisions and shouts from an umpire, the race is a no-holds barred duel over the 4 miles 374 yards upstream on the “flood” or ebb tide against the other crew from Putney to Mortlake. That it should still exist is testimony to the sporting spectacle of endurance and endeavour that it represents. It takes a special commitment and determination to make a seat in one of the racing crews and to row on the “win or lose” basis. 

 

To assemble a Boat Race crew takes more than simply offering places to international standard oarsmen and turning them loose on the Thames one Sunday in early spring. The race is well over 3 times the international regatta distance. The river is variable and you row irrespective of the weather and water conditions. The training so severe that on an Olympics year like this, the oarsmen who have made their national squads usually opt out of the Boat Race. The training for these crews is timed for a race at the end of March, over a far longer distance, and in completely different conditions. It takes time for a rowing eight, a finely-balanced mechanical machine, to come together.  

 

Over the years, both Cambridge and Oxford have been able to induce international medal-winning oarsmen to row for them in the Boat Race. The most famous example was the Oxford Mutiny in 1987. Vowing revenge on Cambridge for defeat in the Boat Race in 1986, Chris Clark (part of the US American squad) promised he would return with the US Olympic boat if necessary to win the following year.

The US contingent fell out with the then Oxford coach: Dan Topolski. After arguments about training and crew composition the five American crewmen mutinied and the Blue Boat seats were filled with reserve crewmen. Cambridge were favourites. But for a sudden storm at the start of the race, an Oxford cox steering for immediate cover and calm waters under the Middlesex station, and a Cambridge crew that stayed to row against the waves, saw an Oxford victory against the odds. While nothing is ever certain at sporting events, being favourites at the Boat Race offers even less assurance of victory. 

 

The Boat Race always has some element of incident. This year the Boat Race was brutal: weather and conditions were amongst the worst I have seen. With the onset of Storm Katie starting to hit London, the river was whipped up with white peak waves on the stretch from Chiswick steps to Barnes Railway bridge. It has been a while since a crew actually sank. The last time was 1978 when Cambridge took a swift and hard lesson in submarine tactics. Over the years, Cambridge have had a higher ratio in sinking; Oxford have a higher ratio in mutinies! 

Rowing eights now have bilge pumps and drainage systems to stop such an event. Even with these modern safety aids, the weather was sufficiently bad at times this year for the Cambridge Women’s crew to almost sink during the race. It was testimony to their fortitude, endurance and skill that they continued to row, finding calm waters, and letting the boat drain the water. 

 

For the men’s race, the conditions were still highly changeable and challenging. From sunshine and calm when the crews took to the water, the rowing up to Hammersmith Bridge was overcast but still calm. The crews maintained course on their respective station (which means taking either the Surrey or Middlesex side of the river) to try and maximize the benefit from the ebb tide (the stream that results from the tide coming in). 

Cambridge, on Surrey, went off quickly and were establishing a lead. However, through Hammersmith Bridge and out on to Chiswick Reach (past the Eyot), the weather and river conditions deteriorated rapidly. With the wind from the west, at the backs of the rowers, and with the tidal river pushing the water against the wind, the course became a mass of white tipped waves. Cambridge’s blade work was a picture of precision timing through the worst part of the course and they increased their lead. The work of the Cambridge coxswain was equally commendable and as Cambridge had over a length lead, they were at liberty to dictate the course. 

Hence, the rather strange sight of the Cambridge crew seeking cover at the Middlesex bank (had the crews been level or near level Cambridge would have been required to stay on their Surrey station in the roughest part of the water) and then veering through the middle arch of the Barnes Railway Bridge (a course requirement). 

 

By the time Cambridge won, with a valiant Oxford charge at the end that narrowed the gap, the sunshine and calmer conditions had returned. Cambridge received the trophy under a setting sun with the painful memories of the race long forgotten. It is an essentially cruel race: you can only win or lose. No second or third. You train for a year, perhaps longer, and on the day you can only see your hopes and dreams dashed or realized. There are so many factors over which you have no control: the weather, the river, the rowing from the other seven, the course steered by your cox, the decisions of the umpire. Yours is not to question; but to serve the boat and row! 

 

To celebrate their association with the Boat Race, Parmigiani have produced a number of their Tonda Metrographe watch in Cambridge or Oxford Blue dials. There are also other versions, one of which I wore on the day, with appropriately-coloured subdials. While the rowers, who are simply concentrating on what they are doing, have no need for a chronograph, the cox and coach certainly do.

The race is all about time: time to the Mile (or Fairburn) post; time to Hammersmith Bridge, time to Chiswick Eyot and then the railway bridge at Barnes. Too long on one part of the course, how much energy left in the legs of the rowers? Competitive rowers are used to rowing a two thousand metre course, about six minutes of rowing; the rowers at the Boat Race are looking at seventeen or eighteen minutes at race pace. The term “dying in the boat” refers to an incident of an oarsman collapsing because of fatigue. The last time that happened was three years ago. 

 

 

The Tonda Metrographe is an excellent everyday watch. The design is distinctive and the more decorative elements of the watch are highly polished. Beneath the dial the watch is powered by the PF315 automatic calibre: a slim-line movement with a considerable 351 components. Nice touches such as the treated Hermes strap and the anti-reflective coating on the crystal make the watch the gentleman’s sporting watch for just about all occasions.

Whether on the launch following the race, the Winchester Club for the pre-race lunch and drinks, and even with the dinner suit for that post-race celebration; this is the watch to wear, given that your blues are not dark – for this year at any rate! 

 
[Cambridge celebrate their victory – the first since 2012] 

 
[And that was that! So lads…. Same time next year?]