HOCR

Maybe hard to see in video, most notable when watching in person was change in shoulder height through drive, or "rowing over a barrel". Throwing the shoulders around shortens the catch a bit and makes the drive inefficient.

Another comment overheard was "lack of aggression".

The technique is pretty good and has been making strides all fall. Later video will look even better than this.

I would disagree with "lack of aggression", but perhaps agree with "lack of confidence in our fitness". Even so, this boat had a very intelligent piece, and didn't die later in the race. That consistency over the last half of the course put them in the top 50%. Maybe it was a surprise to us that we had such a strong 2nd half.

Consider the team's improvement right now to be "70-30". For us, 70% of getting faster is getting fitter, so that we have the confidence to be aggressive on the race course. The other 30% is improving our technique, but we have less distance we need to travel there before the rowing really becomes quite solid.