Nick Westby: Rowing towards a bright future if £1m funding gets green light

As a complete novice at the helm of a boat, the agreement I struck with Leeds Rowing Club when I embarked on a participation feature with them at Roundhay Park was that under no circumstances should I capsize.

It was not an insurance issue. It was one of bravado, and of self-preservation. As hot as the weather has been, I had no desire to tumble sideways into the deep, murky blue of Roundhay Lake.

Fortunately, and in my defence, the stabilisers were not optional.

They are a necessity for anyone heading out on a practice boat.

Rowing is about staying afloat, being at one with the water, and much like riding a bike, you have to stay upright to progress.

But from the very start you require a little help, hence the extension to the hull of the boat provided by the stabilisers.

Before you even get near a boat, though, the first act of the opening lesson of the club’s six-hour Learn to Row scheme is on the rowing machine in their little clubhouse by the side of Roundhay Lake.

This should be a doddle, I thought. No stabilisers needed here as I bounded onto the seat, unhooked the handle and got cracking.

David Cottrell, the Leeds club’s Learn to Row instructor, stopped me before the whirring of the machine could build.

I had committed my first error, one that every person who rows a boat sees commonly in gyms up and down the country.

The actual rhythm of an oar striking the water and being lifted looks nothing like that replicated regularly on a rowing machine.

The correct stroke is more fluid, more deliberate and contains more component parts.

Fortunately, I got the hang of it pretty quickly, as I sat amongst the club rowers who blasted out a few hundred meters before heading out onto the lake in their two-man or four-man boats.

After 15 minutes of practice and armed with a new stroke, we headed to the water, which is about the time a pleasurable summer’s evening became a worry. For I had left my comfort zone behind me and as David and I walked to the pontoon with me carrying the front of the boat and he the back, the nerves began to sink in.

I have never been a great sportsman, hand-eye co-ordination fails me, and I’m too heavy-footed and heavy-handed. Ham-fisted was the way one schoolteacher put it.

So as we lowered the boat into the water, one stabiliser balanced on the pontoon, the other threatening to submerge, I was asked to climb into the boat and drop gracefully onto the seat.

I got half of this routine right. The drop was executed from a little too high and I jarred every bone in my body. I did at least find the seat with my posterior, but as I sat there, gritting my teeth as the hurt subsided, that was little consolation.

And yet, that was as harrowing as it got. It turns out, I’m not that bad a rower. Because we were only concentrating on rowing with the arms and not the legs, such are the many movements you have to get right, I found the actual process not as difficult as I thought it would be.

Funnily enough, I was better at rowing in circles than I was in a straight line, not that that should mean anything, but at least I was moving. And not capsizing. Once we added the raising of the knees to the moving parts of the rowing stroke, I started to get a little unco-ordinated.

“You’re doing fine,” bellowed David from the riverbank, but I was not convinced.

After a few rows around the water near the boathouse – including a nervous brush with Leeds Canoe Club who were playing a little kayak water-polo – I made it safely back to the pontoon before tumbling out of the boat about as gracefully as I had entered it.

My body was screaming. I had used muscles I didn’t know I had. My shoulders felt like they were about to burst out of my t-shirt.