Rowing Merit Badge

One requirement gates four, and it says which four

2 Before completing requirements 4, 5, 6, and 7, successfully complete the Scouting America swimmer test.

That is the clearest sentence on the badge and the most important. Four requirement numbers, stated, and between them they are every minute this badge spends in a boat.

Read that table from the other end if you have not passed the test. Requirements 1, 3, 8 and 9 are seventeen of this badge's thirty one steps, none of them needs the swim test, and none of them needs water. A Scout who cannot yet pass the test is not blocked from starting; they are blocked from four of the nine.

The badge does not tell you what the test is

Every other aquatics badge in the requirements book prints the swimmer test in full, inside the requirement, where you cannot miss it. Kayaking does. Small-Boat Sailing does. Swimming does. Water Sports does. Rowing names it and points at another badge's pamphlet.

Here is what those other badges print:

Jump feetfirst into water over the head in depth. Level off and swim 75 yards in a strong manner using one or more of the following strokes: sidestroke, breaststroke, trudgen, or crawl; then swim 25 yards using an easy, resting backstroke. The 100 yards must be completed in one swim without stops and must include at least one sharp turn. After completing the swim, rest by floating.

Four things in that worth noticing before you turn up:

• It is one continuous hundred yards. Not a hundred yards with a breather in the middle.
• The last 25 yards are a resting backstroke, which is a different skill from the first 75 and the part people have not practised.
• There is a sharp turn in it.
• It ends with floating, which is part of the test and not a cool down. Where it gets taken: at summer camp on the first day, at a council or district aquatics session, or anywhere your unit has a qualified person to conduct it. It is not this badge's counselor's job and it does not have to happen on the same day as any of the rowing.

Requirement 4: an afternoon, or a season

4(a) Alone or with a passenger, do the following in either a fixed-seat or sliding-seat rowboat (launch, row 100 yards and return, backwater 25 yards, land and moor, tie five knots)

4(b) Participate as a rowing team member in a competitive rowing meet ... The meet must include competition between two or more teams with different sponsors. Complete at least 10 hours of team practice prior to the meet.

These are not two routes to one place. 4(a) is a session at a waterfront. 4(b) is joining a crew, practising for ten hours, and racing against a team from somewhere else.

And 4(b) does not let you off anything. Requirements 5, 6 and 7 are still required, and all three are boat work: coming alongside a pier and swapping places, a swamped boat drill in deep water, and rowing out to a swimmer and towing them home. So a Scout who races still has all of that ahead of them. Choose 4(b) because you row competitively already, not to save time.

The five knots, and the two nobody has taught you

4(a)(5) Tie the following mooring knots: clove hitch, roundturn with two half-hitches, bowline, Wellman's knot, and mooring hitch.

Search the whole requirements book and those last two occur exactly once each, here. Nobody in your troop learned them for a rank, a lashing or another badge. Learn those two first, at home, in a chair, with a piece of line, because the waterfront is a bad classroom and the person teaching you rowing may be meeting Wellman's knot for the first time as well.

Requirement 5 is a question about which boat you can get

5(a) In a fixed-seat rowboat ... help a passenger into the boat ... demonstrate sculling over the stern or side ...

5(b) In a sliding-seat rowboat ... with your buddy assisting you, get out onto the pier ...

The two are not similar exercises. 5(a) involves a passenger, a change of position in a boat while afloat, and sculling. 5(b) is getting out and in twice, with a buddy, and the difficulty is the boat rather than the manoeuvre.

What decides it is what floats near you. Scout camps and liveries overwhelmingly have fixed-seat rowboats, so 5(a) is the camp answer. Sliding-seat boats live at rowing clubs and with a small number of recreational owners, so 5(b) is the club answer.

Settle it before you plan requirement 4(a), because 4(a) is done in "either a fixed-seat or sliding-seat rowboat" and there is no reason to arrange two different boats for one badge.

Note also that 5(a) is the only place on this badge that asks for sculling, and requirement 9(f) asks you to discuss what sculling means in fixed-seat and in sliding-seat rowing, which are two different things. Doing 9(f) before 5(a) makes the demonstration make sense.

The wet day and the dry evenings

This badge organises itself into two piles, and only one of them needs a waterfront.

The wet pile: 3, 4, 5, 6, 7. Requirement 3 fits a life jacket, which is done at the water's edge anyway. Requirements 6 and 7 both need deep water, supervision, and another person: requirement 6 needs a boat you are allowed to swamp, and requirement 7 needs somebody willing to be the swimmer. That is one well-organised session, or two, and it needs arranging. Summer camp does all of it in a week; anywhere else it takes a phone call.

The dry pile: 1, 8, 9. Sixteen steps of explaining, describing and discussing, and every one of them can be done at home. Requirement 9 alone is seven separate discussion topics and is the largest single piece of work on the badge that does not involve a boat.

Do the dry pile first and do it properly, because half of it is what makes the wet day go well. 9(d) is how to determine the proper length of oars, which you would like to know before you pick up a pair. 9(b) is precautions in strong winds and heavy waves, which is the reason a session gets cancelled. 9(e) and 9(f) are the difference between the two kinds of rowing, which is the question requirements 4 and 5 are asking you to answer with your hands.