2021 Hudson USP — Hebdon Hammers

In writing this blog, I get to review and compare some pretty interesting boats of all ages. It gives us a good snapshot into the development and historical context of boat design and rowing philosophy through the years. There have been monumental shifts in the industry in the last 20 years, with the last 10 years seeing some fairly large developments in the design and manufacture of racing shells. Today, I’m going to talk about a boat you can actually buy, brand new, at the time of writing.

I was fortunate enough to connect with Matt Muffleman, SE Representative for HUDSON who made available a full range of 2021 HUDSON USP 1x shells for testing. And so, on a stunning fall day, I was able to pick out the model that matched up with my weight and take it for a spin. Did I mention that Matt Muffleman is awesome?

Looks and “Cool Factor”

This shell is essentially the very cutting edge of boat design in 2021. From afar, if you are already familiar with HUDSON’s offerings in the last 10 years, there aren’t too many surprises in store regarding the overall profile and the lines of the boat. But, when you start taking a closer look, you begin to notice some of the cool details that show some evolution of a great fundamental design. The most obvious modern feature is that beautiful carbon bow rigger. It’s extremely well made and almost sculptural. The bracket that holds the oarlock in place has been trimmed down to just the bare essential material needed to keep everything in place, as compared to the design a few years ago.

I’m not sure if it’s some kind of masking technique, but it’s pretty cool how HUDSON has integrated their shark-fin logo right into the deck, rendered in carbon fiber. While we’re taking a look at the deck, check out those slides; the wheels and slides are custom to HUDSON, and there seems to be some major benefits to them, as described in the “features” section. Of course, that checkerboard pattern of the carbon fiber is a high-modulus design, which is generally reserved for high-end racing shells.

Moving to the foot-stretcher, there’s a number of cool touches throughout. There are no wing-nuts here; HUDSON has custom injection molded knobs in the style of a symmetrical version of their logo. That large metal knob in the middle, which is a sort of center-peice, is machined titanium. It doesn’t quite feel like steel or aluminum in the hand, and this sort of showmanship is certainly rare in the industry. I appreciate that level of attention to detail, wherein even the smallest bolt has been scrutinized. In fact, as far as I’m aware, all of the metal hardware in/on the rigger (aside from the oarlock gates) is titanium, which means less weight and no corrosion. HUDSON gets top honors, here.

Time for a short history lesson: The World Rowing Federation used to be known as FISA, a french acronym for Fédération Internationale des Sociétés d'Aviron (International Federation of Rowing Societies, directly translated). This organisation dictates the rules and regulations of the sport of rowing. All safety features and policy with regard to sliding-seat rowing is determined by World Rowing. This includes the ubiquitous bow ball.

You may have noticed from some of the photographs that this bow ball looks strange. They’ve integrated this safety feature into the structure of the boat itself; it’s not rubber but is as hard as the rest of the hull. HUDSON had some discussions with World Rowing to clarify the purpose of the bow ball. For those who have always wondered, the bow ball is meant to act as a point of deflection on the bow, with the hope of preventing that sharp point from puncturing another craft (or creature). In other words, the bow ball makes the boat go off to the side rather than through an object, as well as preventing piercing incidents. Consider that a single at speed travels around 14mph (about 22.5kph), weighs at least 125lbs with a rower (assuming lightweight), and terminates in a sharp point. That point looks pretty dangerous with all those forces acting on it. What HUDSON has done here is to integrate the bow ball into the hull in order to streamline the design and reduce maintenance. It still serves the same purpose, but it’s now been made a part of the boat, rather than being tacked on.

While we’re still looking at the bow of the boat, we can see the traditional HUDSON bow fin painted on the sides. This mark has been placed such that, if the rower is the correct weight class, the bow wave that forms as the shell is rowed will crest just touching the bottom of that mark. (which looks like a wave). This effect occurs at the finish of the stroke, when the inertia of the rower is most toward the bow.

All in all, HUDSON has taken an evolutionary approach to their design, but the end result makes you sort of do a double take, asking yourself, “When did HUDSONs start looking this good”?

Stiffness

This is a top-of-the-line single, and as such is made of a carefully planned selection of carbon fabrics, each placed in a specific location to play to the particular strengths of that material. Thus, the hull is incredibly stiff and I detected no “bounce” along its length bow to stern, even when carrying the boat or placing it into slings.

HUDSON uses a number of carefully developed epoxy formulas; it’s not an off-the-shelf formula. They combine this chemical bonding with a mechanical bonding technique that takes into consideration the nature of carbon fiber fabric. I garner that this is a play toward longevity rather than outright stiffness, but is notable nonetheless.

The whole shell is stiff enough that it isolated a quirk regarding boat feel that I’ve yet to determine the cause. I’ve detected this in other boats as well, but I found it highlighted here due to the stiffness and smoothness of how the boat runs through the water. There’s a certain elastic rubberiness that is best felt at both the catch and the finish. It crept into my mind that perhaps it’s my oars, but I have super stiff (older) oar shafts and also haven’t felt the sensation in every boat (cough cough FluidDesign cough). The carbon rigger (which resembles a work of modern art) has had as much deflection engineered out of it as possible, so there may be some other points of deflection or “bounciness” elsewhere in the shell or mounting points; it could also be that the standard Concept 2 oarlocks themselves have a little flex inherent to their plastic construction. I noticed none of this behavior in the horizontal movements of the drive and recovery, even during heavy loading (max pressure, low strokes per minute). To be fair, I have no data to indicate that this causes anything resembling a slow down; I would put this into a stiffness/handling quirk rather than any kind of problem.

Handling

This boat took me by surprise a bit. I’m pretty good at adapting to different shell designs (which is part of the reason I started this blog). There’s always a lot of warm-up time with an unfamiliar boat, where you’re sort of doing drills and figuring out how the shell wants to be rowed (to reduce it to an anthropomorphism). This shell took a lot more water time to become accustomed to the handling. I was having a bit of a struggle at first with set and catch timing. Working through the Jim Joy drill, among others, I discovered that the key was to lay off the pressure with your hands. I’m already very light in the arms, shoulders and hands with regard to effort (or trying to exert control). But I found that to get those blades in and out correctly, I really had to sort of “let the boat do the work” and hone in on blade feel. I’m already a proponent of a light grip and leverage of the arms during the drive, but the extent to which this proved true in the HUDSON USP was surprising to me. It demands that you loosen up and mentally focus up on what the blade edges are doing. This, to me, is a massive positive, as it encourages proper form.

This shell moves very level through the water, without the stern burying itself deeply in the water at the catch. Some folks apparently complain that this reduces the sensation of speed, but it’s something I prefer. I want my boat to connect each stroke without much bob and wave formation. This lack of rocking is by design, where HUDSON’s engineers have worked to eliminate that movement as much as they could.

There’s a bit of a dual personality with this boat. I always do a wide variety of rowing when testing out equipment; from long slow pieces, to max pressure and high stroke rates. At slow rates and pressures, a lot of focus is needed on balance and technique to keep excessive yaw (oarlock to oarlock) movements to a minimum. But I found that once you start pouring on the rate and power, it actually became far easier to keep control, and that I could spend more of my available brain power focused on the race/workout plan, than on keeping rightside-up. It’s not to say that you can space out, but spending a little less time worrying about set and more time worrying about winning is always a good thing.

Comfort and Features

The seat wasn’t too bad at holding me in one place. While Croker remains the gold standard in seat design, I would put the HUDSON seat design fairly high on the list. I found I still had a hot-spot on the rear of my keister, sort of around the tailbone area (and no, I don’t slouch). To be fair, the wider-set Croker seats do the same thing to me as well. On the plus side, HUDSON does sell two different seat tops based on customer preference, a wide and narrow version (a choice!). This is a move I wholly support, and I hope many other manufacturers implement.

The HUDSON USP has switched the aluminum hyper-adjustable foot stretcher that they’ve used for years for a lighter, simpler carbon piece. While I respected the old version for its wide range of adjustments, it was very complicated and fairly heavy. The new carbon foot stretcher features all of the adjustments you could hope for, but it is far easier to make those adjustments. No tools needed! The obvious central feature, that titanium knob, is what allows for vertical height adjustment. Loosening the bottom nut and this knob allows for pitch adjustments. I have flexible ankles, so I prefer a more vertical footboard angle. I was able to make an adjustment to the footboard angle on the water without any issue. This is a great improvement from the aluminum footboard, and also pretty remarkable for the industry at large.

There’s one small, mundane detail that I absolutely love about the HUDSON USP: The drain plug on the deck is brilliant. I know, but hear me out; all of the little black drain plugs I’ve seen on any other shell have a diamond shaped outer portion with a hole in the middle; a threaded plastic stopper seals the whole affair. The issue here is that, thanks to the threaded portion of the plastic tube, water can’t drain out until crests the 1” or so depth of the plug. This means that no matter what you do, there’s always a small amount of water that refuses to pour out. Here (and I’ve been wondering when someone would implement this feature), there’s a small hole near the top of the plug threads that allows for water to exit near the top of the plug, resulting in a very nearly complete drain.

Check out those wheels and rails that the seat rides upon; they’re the inverse of what I’ve seen from nearly every other brand. There’s a few benefits to this design, not least of which being that water and debris doesn’t build up in the slide channels, keeping them cleaner and smoother over the course of their lifetime. It also seemed like there was zero play in the seat, meaning that the wheels and rails resisted any kind of torsional movement.

A carefully considered, but invisible enhancement comes in the form of the wheel grease used in the ball bearing wheels. HUDSON reportedly went through 8 different formulations before settling on this particular grease. This seat doesn’t move freely without weight in it. The idea here is that once you apply pressure to the bearings, they increase in “slipperiness” and you get a very friction-free, gliding movement. Bonus points are awarded in that the seat doesn’t slam back and forth on the rails as you carry it to the water.

Everything looks awesome so far, pushing the envelope in terms of what a rower can expect in a racing shell. There’s just one little thing I would really love to see, however: a cupholder/waterbottle cage. This is not just a message to HUDSON. There are very few brands of shells that include what I see as a no-brainer. In fact, the only two brands I can think of that make any kind of accommodation for a waterbottle is Sykes, and now the new Fluidesign interior. This should be a relatively simple, but huge quality of life improvement for the rower. I know you can buy accessories and add on something to do this, but come on, this is the best of the best. I want a dang cupholder.

Price

The HUDSON USP single is aimed at being an elite level racing shell. This means we’re looking at not just the best materials used in construction, but also the most features and innovations you can pack into a modern racing shell design (except for that cupholder). What you’re getting is one of the stiffest, well engineered boats out there right now. The pricing is in line with other top-tier manufacturers, but there is a great value proposition baked into the HUDSON experience: top-notch customer service and support. Parts and accessories are readily available online at the HUDSON store, and having ordered through them in the past, I can say that the pricing is good and the orders are always accurate.

Included with the purchase of a new HUDSON USP are many accessories and tools to ensure that the customer gets a complete package. This includes a high-quality padded boat cover, a padded rigger cover, a spare parts package of common wear items and a set of slings. They’ll also paint the shell in whatever colors you’d like; of course, if you want a super complex pattern or style, they can get that done for you as well. Finally, adding to the value of the package is a brand-new-for 2021 toolbox.

HUDSON has worked very hard at increasing quality and streamlining the production process over the last decade, and has come to a point where the reliability and accuracy of their builds are second to none. If you have the chance to test one out, what you receive will be exactly what you expect, which is a good thing.

So, if I were in the market for an elite level racing shell, or even if I were looking to buy multiple shells for a club, I think that this would be on my short list. With so many features aimed at reliability, longevity and easy adjustments (not to mention outright speed), if your club has the means I would suggest buying or leasing a fleet of these. The customer support is second to none; and with that I have to thank Matt Muffleman for giving me the opportunity to test a brand new HUDSON USP, and for being a fantastic rep. If you are looking for a single racing shell or a fleet of boats, give him a call and he’ll get you squared away.