Blog de Puree

Yesterday was the Festival Regatta, run by my rowing club, the Merrimac River Rowing Association (MRRA), and it turned out to be a great day for rowing. The weather was not too humid and the sun wasn’t too brutal and there was the slightest breeze on the water, making for prime rowing conditions.

As a club member, I have to volunteer to work during regattas, so I signed on as an able-bodied boat driver–having experience with driving launches and small power boats. And since I am not in any sort of racing shape at the moment, I didn’t have to worry about racing yesterday. But man was it hard to watch everyone rowing and collecting their medals. I’m itching to start racing again, so I’ve made a promise to myself to get on the water at least four days a week to prepare for the upcoming head race season. (Head races are three miles in length.)

In the morning, I was to drive one of the marshall boats, whose responsibility was to corral the rowers and boats up-river of the start line, inform them when their races started and to send them to the starting line when their race start approached. A relatively easy job. As it turns out, a retired couple from the Lowell Motor Boat Club down river volunteered to help the MRRA and my launch buddy, a woman who was new to rowing, cruised about the river in the lap of luxury on a pontoon boat, complete with it’s own pop-up bathroom stall. While it wasn’t an executive suite by any stretch of the imagination, it was nice to have a bathroom at our disposal throughout the morning. Anyone who knows me will agree that this is a huge bonus.

We were quipped with a bullhorn, walkie-talkie, clipboard with the race schedule, extra life jackets, first aid gear, tools in case our engine died, about 15 gallons of bottled water and bag lunches.

The first five to ten races of the morning were 1,000 meters long, and thereafter, the rest of the races were the standard 2,000 meters. Two-thousand meters of rowing at top speed, sucking wind, splashing forward through the water, trying to maintain the perfect balance of technique and power in order to win one’s respective heat or final.

In the afternoon, I was to drive one of the referee’s boats that would chase the teams down the course during races to ensure there was no foul play or problems during each race. I would have had the perfect seat for the races, but there some extra drivers and I was left at the dock. So I watched a few races from the dock area, then helped out a few folks clean up around the boathouse and went home.

The MRRA had a pretty good showing and won at least four or five gold medals for the day. They even made the Lowell Sun newspaper. As for me, I feel re-motivated to start racing again. But the best part of the day was when I chatted up the club boat captain and told him how the beginner skulls were heavyweight boats and I almost dropped a nut carrying one out to the water the other morning. He’s going to let me use one of the mid-weight boats (Good for rowers weighing between 155 and 175 pounds) until I qualify to use the “A” boats for the competitive club members. No more rowing FISA fiberglass sleds for me. I’ve been upgraded to rowing the Dirigo and Kaschper boats.