George Pocock: Gold Standard

Portage Bay is a privileged location when it comes to rowing. On one side is the University of Washington, which has had an enviable reputation on the water since the 1920s. Earlier this month, for example, the UW team swept through the 107th American Intercollegiate Rowing Association's championship regatta, claiming gold for the men's varsity eight, the second varsity eight, the freshman eight and the open four, and silver for the varsity four. On the other side, just by the University Bridge, is the Pocock Rowing Center, named after Seattle-based boatbuilding legend George Pocock.

Pocock was born in England in 1891, son of Eton College's head boatbuilder. He began sculling when he was 12, won his first race at 15, and shortly thereafter signed on as an apprentice in his father's boatbuilding shop to learn the trade. He continued racing on the Thames, however, and won the prestigious London Bridge to Chelsea race in 1910. His prize was £50, and with this he and his brother headed west, booking passage on a cattle boat bound for Canada, and arriving in Vancouver in 1911 with $20 to their name, determined to make a career out of building racing shells.

It took a few years. Pocock's first break came when Hiram Conibear, the UW coach, rowed over to his workshop to commission an eight-man shell. Moving to Seattle to carry out the commission was the first step, but it was not enough to live on, and so Pocock began working for a Mr. William Boeing, building float-plane pontoons. It was not until 1922 that he returned to work for the university. The very next year, the as-yet-unknown UW racing team competed in the Intercollegiate Rowing Association's championship regatta, and won -- in a Pocock shell.

Over the next 50 years, Pocock built racing shells for almost every competing college in America, and several abroad, keeping his prices low even as his name grew, so that high schools and small colleges could continue to afford them. Olympic golds for eights were won in Pocock shells in 1924, '28, '32, '36, '48, '52 and '58. Pocock's son gradually took over the shop in the 1960s, moving from cedar shells towards fiberglass and carbon fiber, and managing a reputation that kept the shop overwhelmed with orders. Today, Pocock Racing Shells, Inc., is located in Everett, owned by the Pococks' long-time friend Bill Tytus. It is still the industry leader.

Pocock's story is as much about talent and craftsmanship as about the storied rewards of building a new life in the New World. Pocock grew up being told to aim for perfection, and worked his whole life on streamlining and improving racing-shell designs. Even today, the Pocock shell is considered the Gold Standard against which all others are measured.

In a recent (and excellent) Seattle Times article on the peculiar attractiveness of rowing as a sport, Steve Kelley quotes the current UW racing coach, Michael Callahan. Rather than deifying the secrets of rowing, or describing the search for the ideal split time, Callahan takes an angle that surely recalls Pocock's own. "I think our sport is a little like architecture," he says, "where it's art and it's also engineering."