One error in particular required no scolding. They soon learned that if the blades of their oars entered the water too deeply, at the wrong angle, or out of time with the others, or if they remained in the water a fraction of a second too long at the end of a stroke, they were apt to “catch a crab”: the oar would suddenly and irretrievably become stuck in the water, immobilized as surely as if some sort of gargantuan crustacean had reached up from the depths and seized the blade, holding it fast. Old Nero would keep going but the oar would not. The boy holding the oar would either be smacked
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