I say ass, and I come from Cheshire, but I always wanted to say arse years ago, but my late Mum told me not to, as it was a very bad thing to say !!
I found the boat thing quite funny,as this happened to me many yearsago,,It was on a first date with the man who became my now late husband.. It was in the 60's era., He was a sporty type.and an outdoor person..
I wasn't dressed for rowing, I had some high heeled shoes on, and a short skirt, so took my shoes off, and discovered there were a few holes in the bottom of the boat, so got my feet wet through.
Boyfriend said that he would row first to show me what to do, after a while, he said you can take over now.. I moved places, rocking the boat badly, then dropped an oar in the water, boyfriend had to hastily lean over to fish it out, before it floated away.
I then got going reasonably well,, but not so, I kept going in circles,in the middle of the lake,so boyfriend sat next to me. and we had an oar each. that worked fairly well,but then it started to rain very heavily,so he took over., and rowed back to the field like someone in the boat races here. We leapt out of the boat.soaking wet. and ran to the car, as we drove away, we looked out at the lake,only to see the rickety boat floating away from the field area, as boyfriend had forgotten to tie the boat up,and the wind had started to get strong.