The official website of Pete Reed, Great Britain rower

There are two main types of rowing; sculling and sweep rowing.

Athletes with two oars – one in each hand – are scullers. Athletes with only one oar are sweep rowers and row on either bowside or strokeside. In the GB coxless four, Andy Triggs Hodge and Steve Williams row on strokeside, Tom James and I row on bowside.

Sweep boats may or may not carry a cox to steer and be the on-the-water coach. In boats without coxes, one of the rowers steers by moving the rudder with their foot.

Boats are formed in the classes listed below.

For an illustration of this, view this BBC VIDEO the GB squad and Steve Redgrave put together.

 In competitions, boats are usually referred to using shorthand codes - M (Men's) or W (Women's) followed by the number of athletes in the crew, then + for coxed, – for coxless or x for scull. If the crew is lightweight, the boat class is preceded by the letter L. For example, lightweight women’s pair LW2-, heavyweight men’s eight M8+, women’s quad W4x