A quad scull, or quadruple scull in full, is a rowing boat used in the sport of competitive rowing

Rowing (sport)

Rowing is a sport in which athletes race against each other on rivers, on lakes or on the ocean, depending upon the type of race and the discipline. The boats are propelled by the reaction forces on the oar blades as they are pushed against the water...

. It is designed for four persons who propel the boat by sculling

Sculling

Sculling generally refers to a method of using oars to propel watercraft in which the oar or oars touch the water on both the port and starboard sides of the craft, or over the stern...

 with two oars

Oar (sport rowing)

In rowing, oars are used to propel the boat. Oars differ from paddles in that they use a fixed fulcrum to transfer power from the handle to the blade, rather than using the athlete's shoulders or hands as the pivot-point as in canoeing and kayaking. Typical Sculling oars are around 284 cm -...

, one in each hand.

Racing boats (often called "shells") are long, narrow, and broadly semi-circular in cross-section in order to reduce drag to a minimum. They usually have a fin towards the rear, to help prevent roll and yaw. Originally made from wood

Wood

Wood is a hard, fibrous tissue found in many trees. It has been used for hundreds of thousands of years for both fuel and as a construction material. It is an organic material, a natural composite of cellulose fibers embedded in a matrix of lignin which resists compression...

, shells are now almost always made from a composite material

Composite material

Composite materials, often shortened to composites or called composition materials, are engineered or naturally occurring materials made from two or more constituent materials with significantly different physical or chemical properties which remain separate and distinct at the macroscopic or...

 (usually carbon-fibre reinforced plastic) for strength and weight advantages. The riggers in sculling apply the forces symmetrically to each side of the boat. Quad sculls is one of the classes recognized by the International Rowing Federation

International Rowing Federation

The Fédération Internationale des Sociétés d'Aviron, or FISA for short, is the International Rowing Federation which is the governing body for international Rowing. Its current president is Denis Oswald...

 and the Olympics

Olympic Games

The Olympic Games is a major international event featuring summer and winter sports, in which thousands of athletes participate in a variety of competitions. The Olympic Games have come to be regarded as the world’s foremost sports competition where more than 200 nations participate...

. FISA rules specify minimum weights for each class of boat so that no individual will gain a great advantage from the use of expensive materials or technology.

When there are four rowers in a boat, each with only one sweep oar and rowing on opposite sides, the combination is referred to as a "coxed four

Coxed four

A coxed four is a rowing boat used in the sport of competitive rowing. It is designed for four persons who propel the boat with sweep oars and is steered by a cox....

" or "coxless four

Coxless four

A coxless four is a rowing boat used in the sport of competitive rowing. It is designed for four persons who propel the boat with sweep oars.The crew consists of four rowers, each having one oar. There are two rowers on the stroke side and two on the bow side...

" depending on whether the boat has a cox

Coxswain

The coxswain is the person in charge of a boat, particularly its navigation and steering. The etymology of the word gives us a literal meaning of "boat servant" since it comes from cox, a coxboat or other small vessel kept aboard a ship, and swain, which can be rendered as boy, in authority. ...

. In sweep oared racing the rigging means the forces are staggered alternately along the boat. The symmetrical forces in sculling make the boat more efficient and so the quadruple scull is faster than the coxless four.

See also

• Rowing at the Summer Olympics
  Rowing at the Summer Olympics
  Rowing at the Summer Olympics has been part of the competition since the 1900 Summer Olympics. Rowing was on the program at the 1896 Summer Olympics but was cancelled due to bad weather. Only men were allowed to compete until the women's events were introduced at the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal...
  
  
• World Rowing Championships
  World Rowing Championships
  The World Rowing Championships is an international rowing regatta organized by FISA . It is a week long event held at the end of the northern hemisphere summer and in non-Olympic years is the highlight of the international rowing calendar.The first event was held in Lucerne, Switzerland in 1962...
  
  
• Queen Mother Challenge Cup
  Queen Mother Challenge Cup
  The Queen Mother Challenge Cup is a rowing event for men's quadruple sculls at the annual Henley Royal Regatta on the River Thames at Henley-on-Thames in England. It is open to male crews from all eligible rowing clubs. Two or more clubs may combine to make an entry.-External links:*...