Spring (?) Fling Regatta

   

We participated in our second regatta of the season on a windy, cold late March Saturday on Lake Whitehurst at the Botanical Garden. The regatta was billed as the "Spring Fling Regatta" but was as far from springlike weather as you could get. In fact, leaving the boathouse after unloading the boats at the end of the day there were snow flurries.

    Our results were better than last weekend, albeit not where we want to be. Highlights include the WN8 crew who were leading their heat with 150 meters to go only to finish 3rd, less than five and a half seconds out of 1st place and missing 2nd place by a scant 0.2 second and a good showing by our WV4 crew, finishing less than a second behind Hickory (a school that has rowed all year.)

    Coach O'Brien was the starter for the first half of the regatta and observed most crews get off the starting line. His notes include the comment "Our team did a nice job today in lousy conditions. I thought they responded well under pressure." Comments on specific events are below. 

Event 4 MN4 Heat B:  The wind gave our guys a challenge in maneuvering to the platform to get locked on (basic oar work, backing, balancing the boat were a work in progress). The quick start found them unprepared so they had a rough start out of the gate and then experienced a severe crab within the 100m breakdown zone. Once underway again, the stroke fundamentals and timing were a problem. They tried hard, and worked at getting down the course, but need to understand how to work through the stroke in a smooth continuous flow. They are improving from the initial season practices and we want to help them with more dock work and review rowing "101" steps --catch, drive, recovery and rhythm. Even with the problems they finished ahead of the Williamsburg crew.

Event 9 WN8 Heat B: Like all the novice boats, the wind was a huge factor for our crew to deal with. I had to help almost all the coxswains and crews at some point (either getting to the platform, or sculling the boat around to maintain point). I thought the girls did a nice job of keeping their heads and getting into place on the platform. Uneven for first few strokes off the start, and then settled in well going down the course. This is a great group of rowers who are only going to get better. I was very pleased with their overall stroke, and timing at this early point in their rowing experience--Well done! There is not another group of novice rowers who are as good as this unit. I am proud of how they have come together as a team. As you and I discussed, if we can keep their "heads in the boat" they will be hard to beat. Below is the sequence I shot from the dock.

Event 15 WV4 Heat C: Tremendous progress with this boat. Becky showed much more power and efficient locking at catch (we want to encourage no hesitation at catch for her). Liz is using her leg drive better and not getting stuck with as much layback at release. Erynn is figuring out how to get immediate connection at catch and her hand height and blade control are much, much better. Both Erynn and Becky are able to balance the power of the starboard side of the boat much better compared to just a few practice sessions ago. Clare was unbelievably good for a novice in the varsity boat. She gets my gold star for this week (as well as all the women novice rowers!). I wrote on my ref sheet "GOOD START!!!!! Much more aggressive with power moves down the race course ... BETTER stroke rate" "Bow Timing" Clare was early on most strokes, but I was excited to see her commitment to staying with the more experienced rowers. I like her spirit and attitude. Nothing wrong with giving your all. Rachel did quite well with the race plan execution, and seemed poised dealing with the wind and boats moving around her going down the course. Her experience as a rower and time on the team are a real asset. This is our top boat. If we continue the conditioning and get them used to stronger race cadence, they will hold their own.

Event 19 WN4 Heat B: Nice job. Start could be smoother, but once underway, they showed good fundamentals, decent speed and better than average rhythm. I wrote "consistency?" I recommend we try to get more distance and strokes in for the novice women and varsity boats at practice. That will go a long way towards driving home the fundamentals and improve endurance. They did finish over 20 seconds ahead of NC, our boathouse rivals.

Event 25 MN8 Heat A: I was switching out and didn't see. Below is a shot of the crew heading out, taken by Mr. Banaag.

Event 29 MV4 Heat C: I followed this race. Nathan and Will, as always were good. Will could be smoother, but the balance and stroke cadence in the boat threw him off. Emilio is progressing well. He needs to get more comfortable getting through the stroke and hanging on the oar. We can help with reverse pick drill, and regular pick drill, as well as outside arm rowing on the square (when he is ready). John gave his all, but he was overpowered by the starboard rowers. They went down the course at easy pace (26-27 SPM--not a lot of leg drive, occasionally got up to 28SPM). I kept putting my stroke watch on them because I was convinced they couldn't be rowing more than 22SPM. We need to get them on erg and show them how to push hard enough to crank out more watts!! Summary: the men's V4 has potential. Stroke seat can give more power, 3 can hone smoothness, 2 seat needs to balance starboard rower output, and bow needs a little more boat time to get used to applying his power through the stroke. They missed 3rd place by less than a second. Getting better, but we can give them more help with focus and practice.

Event 32 Mxd4: I followed this race down the course as the ref. At the start Jess was the last boat to arrive and brought the boat right to platform bow first instead of stern to. The starter made a loud comment about the boat being pointed the wrong way. I jumped out of the ref launch and went across the platform and helped our rowers spin in place, scull the bow and get their point. The coxswain kept her cool, but I know she was embarrassed. The starter apologized to me later--he didn't realize our boat had a novice coxswain in her first race at this venue. Anyway, Anna in stroke did nicely helping get the boat in position as well as Steven in bow. He impresses me, he has poise and is smart and strong--I like his style...he has leadership potential. This crew did well considering they don't ordinarily row together--I was proud of how they held up in difficult conditions. They finished 3rd ahead of James River.

Event 34 Mxd8 Heat B: Another one of my favorite boats. I was impressed with their spirit and how they worked as one in this event. I wrote "powerful start"...."they remembered basics from practice"..."like the aggressiveness"...Good job here and with more endurance, they could have easily hung with the other boats. They did finish ahead of Cox.

    If anyone have additional photos, please send them my way. The picture at the top of our WV4 showing very good body position at the catch was taken by Mr. Miller from one of the launches following the racing. The picture above was taken by Mrs. Berkey. The picture at the bottom from Mr. Miller shows the WN8 about midway down the course.

Season Opener Regatta

The sprint season started on a very chilly morning on March 21st with a regatta on Lake Whitehurst. The conditions were rather benign with light winds and by the end of the day the temperature warmed to about 50 degrees. We've never before entered novice crews in this "season opener" regatta, rather choosing to wait a week for additional on-the-water practice time before letting novices race. This year, however, we entered two novice eight crews, the WN8 and a MxdN8. The mixed crew, at the end of the day, ended up winning 3rd place ribbons, placing ahead of Maury's and First Colonial's crews.

Over all it was a learning experience for everybody. Our coxswains saw the course for the first time and learned how to back into a starting platform. The rowers learned what competition is about. Yes, rowing can be fun, but racing is about pushing your boat longer and harder than the competition. Some of our folks have very good technique (the WV4 was sitting in 2nd place out of 5 halfway down the course) but we still need to improve overall endurance.

It seems that many schools had some problems: (a single rowed into our W2V4 as they were headed to their start, the MxdV8 race, which we weren't in, had to be stopped and restarted after collisions, and coach O'Brien saw a number of instances where boats encroached onto other boat's lanes - see his comment on event 10 below.)

One thing I noticed from the recovery dock is that many crews, including ours, stopped rowing before they crossed the finished line. The video below of our WN8 shows all but Anna stopping 5 seconds before the bow crosses the finish line (when the horn blows.) Coxswains need to watch carefully the finish platform flag and not stop their crews until the flag dips or rises (and usually when the horn blows.)

Coach O'Brien had the opportunity to follow some of the crews down the course and made some notes. Here're are his comments plus some edited video from the gopro. The shots of the MV4 at to top and of the WV4 above were taken by Mrs Shubert from the finish platform. I got the WV8 launch picture from Noah and the shot of the MxdN8 heading out from Mr. Banaag.

Event 10 WN8:  Well done for first regatta. Got locked on without much difficulty. Starting strokes not smooth, reflects experience.  Coxswain did well correcting for course and staying out of the way of Hickory that came over into BSCHS lane. Very, very pleased overall with this up and coming set of rowers!

Event16 WV4 HT A.  (I was at 700M and watched as they went by and for majority of race). Start was OK, but this group has done much more in practice. In 2nd place and staying with leader through 750M. Then endurance and power got them. I wrote "lost connection at catch" and "stroke length:-(" I know these rowers could be one of the top varsity boats in the region (if they want to be). If they are willing to work on endurance and come together as a unit, they could be awesome. Technique in early stages of race was solid. They should think about challenging each other to do some erg as a unit before each practice, and we can give them a different (and more advanced) practice regime. I'm excited for their potential. 

Event 24 W2V4.  I didn't see this one, was coming back from launch dock.

Evt 27 MV4HT B. (Watched from 800M as they went by). I wrote "power; set; endurance" as areas for focus in practice. Endurance and intensity needed to match the raw potential in this boat. Good first outing, but they can do more. They will feel better with more experience and balance in boat. 

Event 32 Mxd4. Didn't see.

Event 34 MxdN8. Good effort. They show potential. We can help them by continuing to work on fundamentals.

Below are the results with the following color code: blue 1st place, red 2nd place, yellow 3rd place, and green 4th or higher.

Pics above by Mrs. Gaughan. Some additional pics (below) were taken by Dan Trevino (photographer) and are available on his site

https://www.facebook.com/dantrevino/media_set?set=a.10204744494944482.1073742062.1000437702&type=1&pnref=story

Below are some shots of the WN8 as they neared the finish.

Useful videos

Because we lost today's time on the water, please spend ~ 1 hour studying these videos.

Villanova rowing during spring break

The basic rowing stroke

Technical rowing with Susan Francia

UPenn's lightweight eight with drone footage!

The complete rowing stroke by Olympic gold medalists

Coxswain driving Rollins past Villanova

Our women's eight at last year's season opener

Our Women's 2nd four

The communications post

Again this season I'll be using the Remind anonymous texting service. Please "subscribe" to the service by following the directions below. Also, if you did not receive an email at 8:55 Monday evening, please let me include you in my blast e-mail list. Send me an e-mail with the subject line "for the crew team address book."  Include your name so I can match names and addresses. Also include  parents names and e-mails..  Thanks!

By the way, the first day of last year's practice was also snow impacted as described in this post. So perhaps yesterday was deja vu all over again. The pics below were taken Sunday afternoon.