Concept2 Forum

Our high school Crew team is fortunate to have a few boats and a generous warehouse owner who rents us land beside a river. We row on the Maurice River in Millville, New Jersey. Since our last indoor competition is on March 3rd, we get onto the water March 5th. It is absolutely freezing this time of year. The school only owns sixteen Ergs (four have broken monitors) and a team with over sixty rowers. At the river, we don't have a dock. This means that our team has to wade in mid-thigh into that ice water and then row while half-soaked. This isn't usually a problem, but it usually isn't 35 degrees outside. Some of the rowers have purchased surf booties and spandex leggings for this purpose. Is there anything more we can do to prevent the suffering of our team? I'm terribly afraid about the general health of our team in such conditions. Several of us have asthma or difficulty breathing during seasonal changes. This includes extreme cold. While it would be nice for us to divide half of the team on the river and half on the Ergs, this is not possible. Our team is not given a bus and the river is approximately a twenty minute drive away that we manage by carpooling. I'm aware that there is already a post on cold water rowing, but our situation is rather specific. Thanks for any tips. We could really use them. ^_^

- VHS Crew

If dry suits and dry socks aren't an option, how about some waders that you take off once you're in the boat?

what about a fundraiser to buy some docking materials? Selling laundry detergent door to door, 24 hour erg marathons at grocery stores and big dinner events (like a spaghetti dinner) are good ways to make money, especially if you have 60 people working at it. Either that, or try thick garbage bags with tie up tops. Theyre small enough to cram into the boat, cheap enough to tear up or lose, and should be generally water tight.

If it is really that dangerous, I'm sure your coach would play it safe. We have to beach launch also, but since it is so cold, we get the boat in the water and oars in the boat really quick. We also have long under armor pants that don't keep us dry, but the water that it retains warms up relatively quickly.

The fund raiser would be a good idea, but we rent the space we use to store our shells. We can't build a dock because we don't own the property, and the owners don't necessarily want one. Right now most of our funds are concentrated toward equipment and now repairs since yesterday our novice boat crashed. The water was 38 degrees and we're about waist-deep. I don't think we should be going out with this kind of weather and the wind chill/speed, but the coach tells us to go, so we go. Our first race is in a week and we need to get on the water, so I don't blame them. The bags sound like a good solution, so I'll give that a try. The leggings don't always keep us warm enough. Either way, I think it's too dangerous to be rowing, especially because only a few of us have ever done a cold water capsize drill. Thanks for the input. We'll see how it works.

- VHS Crew.

VHS: Will the Maurice River Racing take place this year in Millville, NJ?

So far we don't have any races scheduled on the Maurice. Most of them for our season are on Lenape and Cooper. I don't know about the Holly City Regatta, but from what I know, we're not racing home.

VHS: Your team needs to address the low dock issue with Mayor Quinn (Millville City). NJ Fish & Game has jurisdiction over the waterways and boat landings and the DEP governs them. Why don't the local teams use Union Lake as a rowing venue versus the Maurice River? My wife & I attended the 2006 event and wondered why there was no low dock attached to the high dock. If proper access can be provided to the sportsman then rowers should be given some consideration. Thanks for the information regarding the schedule.

NJ: I would love to have a dock, but I don't think the conflict about building one is with the city, it's with the owners of the property. We launch off of the shore by the Harris Industries storage facilities, not off the main dock. We also use the Maurice instead of Union Lake because our teams outgrew the lake. We take out four boats per day and it gets a little crowded even on the river which is easier to navigate and right next to the boathouse.