Five university oarsmen participated in a determination of mechanical efficiency when rowing in a tank. In the tank, water was circulated at 3 m X s-1 by a motor driven pump. The subjects rowed with the stepwise incremental loading, in which the intensity increased by 10% of the maximum force of rowing (maxFc) every 2 min. Power (WO) was calculated from the force applied to the oarlock pin (FC) and its angular displacement (theta H). Oxygen uptake and heart rate were measured every 30 s during rowing. Anaerobic threshold (AT) was determined from expired gas variables by Wasserman's method. AT of oarsmen was 74.6 +/- 6.01% as a percentage of VO2max. As the displacement of the handgrip in the stroke was independent of WO, the increment of WO was caused by the increase of both FC and stroke frequency. Gross efficiency without base-line correction (GE) increased with FC with low intensities of rowing. In the region of 124-182 W of WO GE was almost constant at 17.5%. Efficiency was 19.8 +/- 1.4%, with resting metabolism as base-line correction (net efficiency), and 27.5 +/- 2.9% when using the unloaded rowing as the base-line correction (work efficiency), and 22.8 +/- 2.2% when calculating the work rate as the base-line correction (delta efficiency).