THE JOCK MULLARD The Jock Mullard Rowing Tank, Radley’s brand new indoor rowing facility, opened in September 2015. It is a wonderful new addition for the Boat Club and represents the culmination of a long-held ambition to have a rowing tank in the heart of Radley Campus. In order to ensure that the new rowing tank was the best it could possibly be, the College visited a number of tanks across the UK and as far afield as Ireland and the USA. We seriously considered building a tank which incorporated running water. However, not only are they very expensive and complicated to build, the water can get very rough, with standing waves and a maximum water speed only equivalent to a boat moving at about a rate of twenty-four strokes per minute. It was therefore agreed to select a tank that would accurately simulate the acceleration of a boat.
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THE RADLEIAN
The College decided to consult a world-renowned expert in rowing biomechanics, Dr Valery Kleshnev, to discuss how we could improve the design of a rowing tank. It was important to ensure that the new tank would offer a superior facility for the boys to train in, as well as generate a similar experience to being in a real boat. The College had the idea to incorporate a dynamic stretcher attached to a flywheel as part of the tank mechanism. After a number of technical discussions with Dr Valery Kleshnev, it was agreed to look at a rowing tank in St Pietersburg which uses a simpler bungee cord recoil mechanism. After trying the design it was clear that it offered the most realistic feel of any of the tanks we had tried up until then. This was especially noticeable when we tried it
straight afterwards in stationary mode - the difference was striking. We appointed an architect to design the rowing tank based on the one we trialled in Russia. The result was better than we ever dreamed possible. Thanks to the help of Radley Don, Jonathan Wheeler, and his son William, an engineering student at Oxford who helped design the mechanical components, we managed to create a tank that closely resembled an actual rowing boat. We also enlisted the help and expertise of Ray Smith in the Radley IT department to create a system of eight cameras to offer a variety of views of the rowers. Images are projected onto a screen in front of the tank giving rowers live feedback, instead of having to look sideways at a mirror. The cameras are controlled using an iPad allowing the coach to choose different