How are lanes decided in rowing?

• The draw: a random draw supervised by the president of the jury decides the heat and lane of each crew in the first round. This is the lane draw.
• Seeding: a seeding panel applies criteria published in advance. In principle two crews are seeded in each heat, the highest seed paired with the lowest, the next highest with the next lowest. A random draw then decides which heat each pair goes in, and their lanes.
• Seeding stops there: it affects only the allocation to heats. It is not taken into account in any later round.
• Later rounds: the crews with the best placings in the previous round go in the middle lanes and the next placings in the next lanes outwards. Crews with the same placing draw for their lanes.
• Place before time: crews that went through on their place are in principle given lanes before crews that went through on time.
• Uneven heats: if the heats cannot all be the same size, the bigger heats are drawn first.

The rules give the purpose of seeding: "to avoid many of the faster boats in an event being drawn into the same heat". Putting the best crews in the middle keeps the likely medal race together, where the crews can see each other.