Anyone may steer; the best waterman, if not too short-sighted, should do so, but stroke should not take the task if anyone else is at all fit for it. [Illustration: FOUR-OAR.] The steerer should not be repeatedly looking round, as regards his course. If he is sure of no obstacles lying in his path, he can, when once he has laid his boat straight for a reach, watch her stern-post, and keep touch on it, to hold it to some landmark. A coxswainless four really facilitates oarsmanship. It recovers from a roll more freely than the old-fashioned build with a pilot. It is uneven rowing which causes a roll, but when once equilibrium has been disturbed the coxswain has more difficulty than the crew in regaining balance. The oarsmen aid themselves with their oars, as with balancing poles. The removal of the coxswain therefore tends to reduce the rolling, and facilitates the speedy return of the ship to her keel when momentarily thrown off it. Coxswainless fours at Henley travel now much more steadily than did those with coxswains fifteen years ago. A runner on the bank, to look out for obstructive craft, is useful in practice. It enables the steerer to keep his eyes on his stern-post, and to guide his course thereby in confidence, without repeated twists round to see if any loafing duffer is going to smash his timbers. The pace of a first-class coxswainless four, in smooth water, for half a mile is quite as great as that of a second-class eight-oar with a coxswain. The abolition of coxswain has improved the speed of fours some forty seconds over the Henley course. One good resulted from the attempt of B.N.C. in 1868 to row without a coxswain. It opened the eyes of the regatta executive to the unfairness of tolerating boy coxswains. The University clubs used to carry boys of four or five stone. In that very year the 'Oscillators' had a four-stone lad, while University College carried an eight-stone man. There was just as much difference between these two fours in dead weight carried as between B.N.C. (with no coxswain) and the Oscillators. University clubs are _ex officio_ debarred from obtaining boys to steer. This inequality had been complained of by college crews time after time. Old Mr. Lane, the usual vice-chairman, used to sneer at the complaint, and say, 'If a boy can do in one boat what it takes a man to do in another, it is not fair to prohibit the boy.' If this were logical, then, _pari passu_, there could be no unfairness for one man to do single-handed what in other boats it took a man and a boy (or two men) to do, viz. both row and steer. Mr. Lane's fallacy was exploded by this _reductio ad absurdum_ of his tenets, and regulation weights for coxswains were initiated for following years. [Illustration: NEAR MEDMENHAM.] CHAPTER IX. PAIR-OARS.