THE BOAT RACE FIASCO [To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.]
SIR,—As an old subscriber to your paper I was interested to read the letter you published under the above heading, and would like to make a few comments thereon. I should be sorry to see an outside umpire appointed, for I consider that the true sportsmanlike spirit which has always dis- tinguished the Boat Race finds a notable expression in the recognized custom of the two Boat Clubs to appoint one of their old "Blues" as umpire, usually taking alternate turns.
As a contemporary of Mr. F. I. Pitman, and an old opponent of his, both at Putney and at Henley, I learned early to recognize those great qualities of oarsmanship and sports- manship which have made him the excellent umpire that he is. He showed this excellence, I consider, in his decision not to move the starting post from the centre of the river on March 28th, for had he done so he would at once have rendered nugatory a most important rule of boat racing, where two boats are engaged, viz., that each crew has half the river's width as its own " water," and that it enters the other crew's " water " at its peril. Without this rule in force such complications would arise as to make satisfactory racing impossible, and the umpire's task doubly difficult.
With all due deference to my old and honoured rowing coach, Dr. Bourne, there seems little doubt that the Oxford crew, in addition to their many other drawbacks, were under- boated for the tideway in March. That being so I cannot help thinking that their best policy, under the conditions prevailing at the start, was to have followed their opponents into the sheltered water until they had an opportunity of equalizing conditions when they crossed to the Surrey station, and then to have made their supreme bid for the lead round Hammersmith bend. Had they so done they might at least have made a fight of what was rightly designated a fiasco.—
I am, Sir, &c., W. S. 13:cm IN. Beachamwell Rectory, Norfolk.
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