21/10/2026
Most of us were coached to keep the blade "just covered" and never bury it.
I wanted to see if that stands up, so I read through Valery Kleshnev's BioRow work, listened to his Complete Rowing podcast and went back to Carl Douglas's case for rowing deeper.
The thing that surprised me is that nobody has properly tested it. I couldn't find a single peer-reviewed study that isolates blade depth and measures what it does to boat speed. Most of what we know comes from elite telemetry and fluid dynamics reasoning.
Where I've landed: too deep is real, but too shallow costs you more. As long as the entry and the release are clean, I'm happy for a blade to be deeper through the middle of the drive. That's where the load is highest and where the blade needs the most water around it.
What I'd check first is the rig (pitch, gate height, lateral pitch), then side-on video, then telemetry if you've got it.
One thing from the Kleshnev podcast that stuck with me: in a small Randall foil test with four scullers, the only one who got faster was the one who buried his blade too deep. Kleshnev thinks the foil just helped him keep it level. He was clear it could be coincidence, but I liked it.
Where do you sit on this? Drop it in the comments.
Sources:
Slides 2, 4, 5, 9, 12: Kleshnev, BioRow (2018) Interpretation of the blade work profile; (2022) Practical implications of axial oar forces
Slides 3, 7: Caplan & Gardner (2007) J Sports Sci 25(6):643–650
Slide 3: van Nieuwburg et al. (2023) Front Sports Act Living 5:1109494
Slides 3, 11: Kleshnev (2026) Efficiency of various blade types in rowing, Sports Biomech 25(9)
Slide 4: Kleshnev (1999) Propulsive efficiency of rowing, ISBS; BioRow Webinar 04
Slide 5: Kleshnev, LinkedIn Post (2022) on blade rotation losses
Slides 6–9: Carl Douglas, Blade depth (forum discussion).
Slide 8 curve is illustrative
Slide 10: BioRow Webinar 04 (rigging); Kleshnev, BioRow (2022) Blade pitch adjustment
Slide 11: Complete Rowing podcast ep. 117 with Dr Valery Kleshnev; Concept2 blog (2026)
