Coach Thrasher

Regatta Report: Head of the American

Today I rowed in six seat for the Redwood Creek master's eight at the Head of the American. Results have been posted. With a whopping two 1.5 hour practices, over a stellar two week period (that's 3 hours on the water over two weeks!), we finished 4th of 9 boats with a time of 17:32, and average age of 44 (29s handicap).

Weather was nice: smooth water, no clouds, noon start time, about 70 degrees F.

We started last of the nine boats, and passed our first boat within 20 strokes. We passed 3 more boats through the race, and were 2 seats down on the 5th boat right at the finish line.

We started off with 10 strokes high at a 38, lengthened to 36 for 10, then 10 at 34, 10 at 32, and maintained 31-32 for the body. The boat was off to port for quite a bit of the race and Simona kept calling for port to raise our hands. We really needed to focus to keep it set in our borrowed boat (thanks UC Davis!). It was most likely the rowers and not the boat causing the problems.

Simona's coxing was excellent. It was her second time out with this crew. She seemed to steer her own course the whole time and took the big turn to starboard smoothly. She was also right on the crew for every single stroke of the race, motivating us to go harder. We need to get her out again soon!

All in all, I'm happy with the row. Obviously we need more outings to row together well, and the results are encouraging to that end. The fastest men's open 8 of the day was UC Davis at 16:18, and their average age is 21. I actually think we're in striking distance of those guys... if we only had time to train!

The lineup was:
1 Michael Hindery
2 Valery Axelrad
3 Lance Cowell
4 Graham Barnes
5 Bill Malecki
6 Jason Thrasher
7 Kent Perkocha
8 Kirk Krappe
C Simona Chin

Notable: Bryce Atkinson, PARC alumni, rowed to a win in Berkeley's MN8+. Great job!

Posted at 10:12PM Oct 28, 2006 by jason in Rowing  |