Rancocas Robot

Britons who thronged the banks of the Thames last week for England's No. 1 rowing carnival, the annual Henley Regatta, saw an amazing performance. For four days they gaped at a red-haired American sculler, Joseph William Burk, who decisively outrowed his opponents over the mile and 5/16 course day after day in the elimination heats of, the Diamond Sculls, most famed race in the world for individual scullers.

"He does everything wrong," muttered experts and dubs alike. Rowing an extremely high stroke (36 to 45 a minute, compared to an average sculler's 28 to 32), Joe Burk, who weighs 195 lb. and has arms like piano legs, propels his shell with an unorthodox short jerk of his arms and a quick kick of his legs, sits up almost straight at the end of each stroke. This freak style he developed two years ago on New Jersey's Rancocas Creek, hard by his father's fruit farm, after rowing in orthodox fashion on the University of Pennsylvania crew. He can row for miles at 40, can maintain a speed of 12 miles an hour over a mile and a quarter course. Last year, after running away with the U. S. and Canadian sculling championships with machine-like ease, oarsmen dubbed him the "rowing robot," marveled at the power of his arms. But his brawny arms are nothing compared to his perseverance. In preparing for the Henley Regatta, throughout last winter and summer, the Jersey farm boy rowed 3,000 miles on the narrow, winding Rancocas, with a stopwatch strapped between his toes.

Last week 23-year-old Joe Burk was well rewarded. In the final of the Diamond Sculls, dipping his oars 45 times a minute, he streaked through the water as if he had an outboard motor attached to his 26-lb. shell, not only won the coveted race but did it in 8 min. 2 sec.--eight seconds faster than the Henley record set in 1905. Only three Americans before him had ever won the Diamond Sculls : Edward Ten Eyck in 1897, B. Hunting Howell in 1898-99, and Walter Hoover in 1922.

"They'll have to burn all the books on rowing," sighed onlookers.

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