Men’s Wrap-up
Dogwood
NRC entered a Men’s four loaded with Brad Norris, Bo Bowen, Steve Patrick, and Chris Calico. Linda Logan was the coxswain. They raced against East Tennessee, Oak Ridge A and B, and Asheville A and B, finishing in fourth place. Next was entered a quad, boating Forrest Sanders, Dave Rowland, Mark Ragland, and Josh Herring. Racing against the Atlanta Rowing Club and Masters Coaching, this lineup finished in third place to medal. There was also a mixed 8+ consisting of Kren Teren, Bronwen Wickkiser, Lynnisse Roehrich-Patrick, Emily Carter, Steve Patrick, Bo Bowen, Mark Ragland and David Rowland. Chez Hughes took the crew down the course for her last race as an NRC coxswain. Taking on East Tennessee, Oak Ridge A, Asheville A and B, Atlanta A, and Masters Coaching, the boat did not place, but came in a close 4th.
US Rowing Southeast Regionals
The men’s team sent five seasoned rowers down to this event to compete in a number of sweep and sculling events. The first series of events were in the single sculls, in which Dave Franklin and Mark Ragland were rowing in their first ever race in a single, “Bo” Bowen was racing in the novice single event, and Don Sullivan was racing in his second singles race. All were doing this primarily for the experience, and they got it. Lots of experience. More than anyone else out there. (If you catch my drift…) We then did some double entries with Josh Herring in for Bo. Tons more experience! We were some of the most experienced crews out there! We did get a silver in the men’s four, after Asheville got disqualified for waxing their boat (it wasn’t like they were giving it a bikini wax or anything…), and it became a two boat race between us and Oak Ridge. Oak Ridge had an unusually fast boat for this race, stroked by a guy who just got done rowing across the Atlantic. They took off like they were still sitting in the Gulf Stream. Our best race, maybe our best race of the year, came with us filling out a mixed eight with the Orlando Rowing Club. This started as a three boat race, with a mixed eight of Asheville/Orlando, the Atlanta RC, and our Orlando/Nashville eight. They were referring to the two mixed-mixed eights as “Or-ville A” and “Or-ville B”. I think we were “B”. In the first start, the Atlanta eight veered out of their lane and almost hit the “A” boat, causing the referee to stop the race, and then disqualify the Atlanta eight due to a hand gesture from the cox. ( We did not get a good look, and still can’t say for sure how many fingers the cox used to wave at the judge.) For the second start of a now two-boat race, stroke Dave Franklin took the governor off the stroke rate and we whistled down the course at 36+ strokes per minute. We literally whistled, as the Orlando woman rowing in four seat had recently had some sort of surgery and sounded like she wasn’t going to make it. But she did, fortunately. We won this with a length open water, which saved the weekend for us.
Chattanooga Head Race
The NRC Men’s four, stroked by club president Josh Herring, finished with the second best raw time behind Oak Ridge, but dropped another slot to the Rocket City age handicap, settling for third place, with an adjusted time of 19:35.
The Men’s eight found itself in a two-boat race against an Atlanta lineup which featured something like 20 former Olympians, or so it was rumored. (The actual number climbed as the day wore on….) The NRC’s last hope for victory was dashed when the “Dream Team” boat did not burn up in the atmosphere. Their final time: 15:54. Ours: 19:04. We are proud to say we finished second to a boat containing 38 former Olympians (see?…).
The mixed eight race featured the most exciting finish of the day, in which a hard-charging NRC eight caught up to and passed the mixed eight belonging to Rocket City in the last 250 meters of the course. The fact that they were close enough to do so meant that Rocket City had already lost the the race, but it was still fun to watch. The video of that finish is posted on our club FaceBook page for all to see. Winning time: 19:30.
Hobbs Island Head Race
The NRC men’s four, stroked by Josh Herring, clobbered a composite Rocket City / Guntersville four to take gold. The NRC time was 18:53, a comfortable margin over the second place time of 19:17.
The men’s eight also raced a composite RCRC/Guntersville eight containing no Olympians (contrary to the rumors) and again took first with a time of 17:19 raw (16:58 adjusted) compared to the RCRC time of 18:40.
The NRC men’s double composed of Steve “Shock” Patrick and Tom “Awe” Nagle came in second in their debut to a team from Birmingham, with a time of 23:25 behind the winning 20:40.
The NRC mixed eight continued their domination, with a winning time of 19:25 against a composite boat of Rocket City, Guntersville, UGA, and a bunch of other small Alabama towns, but no Olympians.
Secret City Head Race
The only NRC boat to travel to Oak Ridge to compete at this event was the men’s four consisting of Brad Norris, Roy Bowen, Tom Nagle, and Christopher Calico. They were in a two boat race against host Oak Ridge, and finished second by 32 seconds raw time. The age handicap of the Oak Ridge boat bumped the final margin of victory up a bit. It was still a productive day for this lineup, which also was the first time for Brad Norris in the stroke seat.
The Hooch
Up until the Hooch, the NRC men had been kicking butt in two-boat races, unless the other team was composed of an infinite number of former Olympians. The large and strong field of competition at the Hooch was a wake-up call telling the guys that you probably have to practice together – a lot – to do acceptably at this race. There were some hanging heads as the four finished second to last, and the eight, last place. One glimmer of hope was the performance of iron man Shannon Gilkey, who jumped out of the four after crossing the finish line and into the eight event. The mixed eight raced on Sunday and came in 18th out of 22 entries with a time of 20:06.
Women’s Sweep Rowing
Women’s sweep rowing at the Nashville Rowing Club really took off this year due to the great enthusiasm of the participants and Forrest Sander’s dedication and coaching. Not only did the number of women rowing at NRC double, but WE GOT FASTER too!
The season started with promise when a rocking group of alumni from the spring L2R classes joined the club and said THEY WANTED TO RACE. With so many women eager to compete, Forrest started using erg tests to determine fitness levels of all interested. The 5K test was a particular favorite among the group! But the hard work paid off in results. Here’s the recap:
Rocket City Rowing Club Scrimmage – Experienced Women’s 8 and Mixed 8 both took gold.
Chattanooga – Women’s 8s placed 4th and 5th.
Hobbs Island – Women’s 8 placed 2nd. Women’s 4′s placed 2nd and 3rd.
Head of the Hooch – Women’s 8s placed 8 and 21 out of 22. Women’s 4 placed 19 out of 20.
Some highlights of the season:
- Ann Campbell materializing out of thin air to cox our boats. Ann rowed at Mary Washington University and was in Nashville for the summer doing an internship at Vanderbilt. We love Ann, not just for her good nature and wit, but also for her playful wickedness, often in cahoots with another un-named NRC rower. Forrest was “iced” at least 4 times. Ann made an encore performance by returning to Nashville over her fall break and coxing some NRC boats at Hobbs Island.
- The new dock. A real rowing dock. It’s great! Putting it into the water was probably the riskiest part of its construction. Had we known ahead of time what was involved, many of us may have had second thoughts about helping with the launch!! Ignorance is bliss!!
- Summer evenings after practice with beverages and snacks on the new dock! A new NRC tradition was initiated this summer. It started with baked goods and quickly moved to frosty cold drinks after training sessions on the lake.
- Photos of the novice women’s 8+ that appeared online after a female bonding afternoon at Hannah’s house involving guns and shooting. Love those gun-toting NRC bad-a__ women!!
- Getting lost on the lake one morning in fog so thick that Forrest (in the launch) couldn’t find us. Thanks to modern technology in the form of a smart phone and gps Forrest finally found the proverbial needle in the haystack.
- Almost capsizing at the “Head of the Percy Priest” (or Head of the P.P. to those in the know) in the roughest water most of us had ever seen on the lake. On top of this, the NRC women’s 8+ almost got rammed by Georgia’s novice boat which included several NRC women filling seats for them. Sabotaged? Couldn’t be!
- Hannah’s family surprising NRC by catering a tailgate party at the Hobbs Island Head Race. We need to do that again. After all, rowers do like to eat!!!! And drink.
- The biggest highlight of the year was having THREE women’s sweep boat entries at our final regatta the Head of the Hooch: two 8+ and one 4+ with 20+ women rowing for NRC this year. Our best result was the “boomer 8+” which finished 8th out of 22 boats, up from a 24th place finish out of 27 boats last year. Yeah, we’ve come a long way.
The success of the women’s sweep rowing, both in terms of the number of rowers and the faster times, can be attributed to our coach, Forrest Sanders. Forrest put in an untold amount of time in developing new rowers, honing the skills of existing rowers, coaching the boats, getting us to work together as crews, and maintaining equipment. We know that there may have been times when rowing off into the sunset in his single would have been far preferable to coaching, but Forrest stuck with us and made us work harder. THANKS FORREST!!! We look forward to fun (and more icing) in the coming season.
Also, many, many people in the club contributed to this year’s success. Thanks to everyone who showed up, worked, contributed money or time, and helped out in so many ways.
Bring on 2012, even faster boats, and more women rowing!!!
Other Highlights
Women’s 4x at the Hooch: NRC’s Quad (Erin Ketelle, Cherie Pilliod, Emily Carter, Jessica Grigsby) came in 7th out of 16 boats, but let’s look at the raw time. NRC came in 4th overall by a tenth of a second behind Atlanta. NRC’s raw time was 19:20:6. Atlanta was 19:20.5. That’s tight competition for 3rd place! What will happen in 2012?
Mixed Open 2x: At Masters Nationals, Forrest Sanders and Erin Ketelle came in second. At the Hooch, they stepped up their game and received gold for their amazing performance! Nice job!! (Erin, we’re glad you’re OK.)
