MEN'S ROWING

Last November, I was paging through the ACK (ATLANTIC COASTAL KAYAK:  September 2005) and came across the article where five owners talked about their Echo Rowing shells. “Novel Idea”, I thought. I’ve always been a water person, led kayak trips for the last five years, but never rowed.

I “Googled” the website for Echo Rowing then called and got Laura on the phone – really helpful, extra nice, “We’ll send you some literature and a DVD”. The DVD covered it all from assembly to rowing in three foot waves in 18 know winds. Showed how to climb back on if you capsize (in all my research so far I have yet to find anyone who will admit to ending in the water).

Well there I was in December with a growing fantasy and snow and ice outside. Back I went to the internet and the library where I found three great books:

            1.”Open Water Rowing Handbook” by Bruce C. Brown - the perfect intro the stroke and what kind of boat you might buy.

            2. “Mind over Water” by Craig Lambert – sort of the zen of rowing and competing.

            3. “Rowing to Latitude, Journeys along the Artic Edge” by Jill Fredston – an amazing adventure of thousands of miles of open water rowing

The passion was building, but it was still skiing season when Gaeton Andretta of the Small Boat Shop in Norwalk, CT called. Alerted by the Echo Rowing people to my interest he said he had one of their sculls that I could come and try. I said I’d see him in April.

 Over the next few months the addiction started to set in and as I had questions I called Echo. Who answered but Doug Martin, the designer (original designer of the Alden scull and with some 30 years of experience), he graciously handled all my novice questions.

It was still cold in April, but I couldn’t wait and showed up at the Small Boat Shop. Gaeton put me in one of his dry suits, spent 45 minutes giving me on land and tethered instruction (remember I had never rowed a scull before). Then he sent me out onto the  Norwalk river. Cautiously I played for a half an hour, signed the order and by May I had had another hour of instruction from Gaeton and was out on the Hudson with my own boat.

I have been ocean kayaking for the last ten years, but sculling is different. I can place my kayak with in inches of a rock or buoy; but with three feet of outrigger and nine feet of oars and looking over my shoulder it is now a new challenge. I have tried bicycle mirrors on my glasses, but without much effect. My first time out I came close to center-punching a mid-channel marker and a 54 foot yellow trawler.

While kayaking is 70% upper body with sculling it is 70% in your legs. With your weight aligned where you want it (balanced like in Tai Chi), your legs give the stroke power. There is a fast stroke then a slower recovery while you glide. It is that glide that brings you back. It like getting a runabout up on a plane, like a cross country ski glide or hitting a perfect golf shot. If you push too hard you wobble and get blisters.

With the fiberglass hull you approach your landing carefully. Low docks and marsh grasses are the best. The folding outriggers on the Echo help, but compared to your kayak there is a lot of hardware between you and the shore. Doug Martin says he can make it in and out at a concrete ramp without getting his sneakers wet. I am not there yet.

I have found local rowing associations who give lessons for a fee. They will want you to prove you can swim 50 yards, put a life jacket on in the water and sign a waiver. There may be a membership fee, a program fee and a Learn-to-Row fee. They will start you on the big boats sweeping with a single oar. There will be other restrictions about going out alone, logging in and out and with or without a launch. If you complete that course they may have a sculling course. Most of that is so they are confident of your skills before you go out on their equipment or use their dock to launch for liability reasons. I have now done that (have laid down some $350 so far). On an interesting demographic note the class was 13 women and 3 men; mostly in their 30’s and 40’s. As a 74 year old male beginner I sort of was an anomaly, but was kindly accepted. I have been on one club row and rules were somewhat loosened (four single sculls and one four scull; the support boat followed the four and the rest of us went our own independent ways). They consider the river to have up and down lanes to avoid collisions. I was talked to for zigzagging to check out points of interest. As scullers advance they move to lighter, less stable and more fragile boats which can only be used in certain smooth water conditions. If they tip and go in the water they pretty much need a support boat to recover. With the Echo I just can climb back on and open the self bailer and go (I have tried it) so I will row in much rougher water. The idea of wearing a CD player and listening to music as you scull is not the in thing to do (but I like it and have yet to run into anything while doing it).

All that is a good start, but as I have found the Echo so stable I feel confident about going out solo on quiet days from public sites (principally because I find it a lot of fun and don’t want to wait for the club schedule. The club has a bulletin board for those looking for rowing partners; may try that as well.) To find a partner to row with you must find someone with a comparable boat. The real racing sculls will run away from the recreational sculls.

I have done some sculling on lake trips with my kayaking buddies. You can intermix, but you can’t get too close. They will snake through a slalom of moored boats while you do a lot of planning and head swiveling. Trying to get close enough to give your kayak partner a hug takes care and cross talk. I did one moonlight paddle in rough water and then added reflective tape to near my oar grips so I could see which side was up. A good paddler with a fiberglass kayak can keep up with sculling speeds, but generally you can dance in and around the group like a water bug. When they get to the head of the lake and want to check out the little stream leading to the source, you will go till your oars touch the shores and then wait for them to return.  

This is a whole new water experience and when I link several strokes with smooth glides it is a gas. Try it you just might like it.