One cool fact is that rowing offers a bigger efficiency advantage over swimming than biking over running:
The efficiency advantage of biking versus running is around 2.66x, the hour record on bikes is currently 56 km (56km/hr), and the fastest marathon run is around 21km/hr.
On rowing vs swimming, the current freestyle 1500m record is 14:31 (6.2km/hr), whereas the best time for single scullers is 2km in 6:30 (18.5km/hr), for an advantage of around 3x.
* I tried to pick roughly similar distances to compare.
The efficiency advantage of biking versus running is around 2.66x, the hour record on bikes is currently 56 km (56km/hr), and the fastest marathon run is around 21km/hr.
On rowing vs swimming, the current freestyle 1500m record is 14:31 (6.2km/hr), whereas the best time for single scullers is 2km in 6:30 (18.5km/hr), for an advantage of around 3x.
* I tried to pick roughly similar distances to compare.