Hamilton vs. Hoy

You are right, propelling a boat and your own body weight, under your own power is similar effort to to turning a steering wheel!

Rowers may be sitting down, but they use their legs, body and arms to pull on the oars.
winston, I clearly wrote, Rowers sit down in their sport, and only appear to pull with their arms. This inferred that they certainly DIDN'T just sit down and pull with their arms, but only APPEARED to......to the untrained eye.

I also mentioned that top rowers have one of the lowest at-rest heart rates in the sporting world. This could not be due to a lack of training, but would most patently be due to a level of fitness, only matched by top cyclists.

You seem to have misread, or misunderstood, what I had written.