Textile River Regatta head race

[Yankeerunner]

Weird day at the Textile River Regatta in Lowell today. Although the winds seemed manageable at first and the regatta got underway on time, some of the single boats were capsizing and other boats had waves coming over the gunnels and sloshing around inside the boat. One of Junior girls that flipped actually got herself back in the boat and finished her race. Good for her! Eventually the judge decided that for safety purposes all single and doubles events scheduled for after 11 AM would be cancelled. Since the Mixed Masters Double that Lisa Doucett and I intended to row was at 11:35 AM that meant we were out. But wait!

Another of the Mixed Masters Double boats that was cancelled was comprised of fellow CRI rowers Hugh Scott and Andrea Loew. With some quick thinking on Lisa's part we lobbied to combine into a Mixed Masters Quadruple scull to row in that race, and the sympathetic race committee said yes. Lisa found an idle 4X, the 'Paul Wenger,' for us and we adjusted things to our specs. Next we heard a notice from the loudspeakers that all further lightweight races were cancelled. Luckily they didn't know that all four of us were lightweights rowing in an Open division. One of the volunteer crew came by and warned us that the Novice Eights were being cancelled and advised us to get out on the water pronto and beat any attempt to cancel our alternative race. We did so, and apparently just in time, as we found out later that our Military/Veterans Four with Coxswain got cancelled. In all, 15 of the final 24 events were axed.

We rowed upriver to the start slowly, since we were way ahead of schedule, and let a flotilla of Eights that were racing before us pass by. A rather bumpy ride on the chop and waves. Finally, off we went, into the teeth of the wind.

Things were slow to begin with, the boat felt heavy, the wind pushed us around, but as we rounded the first curve the water got a bit better and our pace quickened. Then the winds gusted and nearly brought us to a standstill. But we plugged away, oars sometimes nearly being pulled out of our fingers as the wind grabbed them on the recoveries. Rocking and rolling and bouncing and jostling we finally made it across the finish line, and noticed that the one other boat in our race had not caught us, despite our ages averaging 70 and theirs 35. More surprising, when the results were posted, was that we beat them by 20 seconds in raw time! We didn't even need the age handicap that officially put us over three minutes ahead of them. A rough ride but a satisfying one.

Lisa and I were feeling good about the day as we lugged the oars back to the CRI trailer for the trip back to Boston.

[jackarabit]

Quick reaction finding and re-rigging the 4 to suit. Full use of opportunity, luck and pluck. What more could you ask for on such a beautiful morning? Maybe oilskins?

[PaulG]

I was further downriver on that day looking at the Merrimack and saw rollers moving upstream. I would not want to be in that in my ocean shell. It must have been carnage for the skinny boats in Lowell.