Summer Season Sizzles to a Close

In one of the hotter July's in recent memories, a relatively young flock of RNYers drilled, trained, and raced their way through one of the program's most successful summer seasons ever.

Opening up at the highly competitive Independence Day Regatta in Philadelphia, crews battled against development camps and summer traveling crews galore. The J16 4+ lost a heart breaker (less than a length) to miss the final, while the J18 4+ pulled off a massive come-from-behind move to advance to the final.

The following week, RNY made its first trip ever to Baltimore and Washington, DC, which included a viewing of the monuments, the Capitol Building, a George Washington University visit, and a fabulous stay at the home of our gracious hosts, Ken and Andrea Kraus. The racing was full of excitment, including a Junior 8s race against a crew from Australia, an Open 8s race that featured a battle between our juniors and RNY powerhouse staff and alums, and our first ever venture into competitive sculling (Margot Warshaw and Mariel Vanderlinden debuted in the single scull).

Finally, we closed out the season with a return to Philadelphia, hoping to see an improvement from the first visit-- we did just that. The J16 4+ dropped 12 seconds from its time just two weeks prior to advance to the final, where it took gold by open water. The Varsity 8 took bronze in the 2k and won the dash, while the 2V (in the same event) finished close behind in both, taking a bronze in the dash. Even our third varsity eight showed some speed and featured some rowers that will certainly be key players moving forward.

In all, where we hoped for moral victories and race experience with this young group, we got more than that. This should make for an interesting 2010-2011 season. We're all revved up.

Teacher Learn to Row Day at Row New York!

We had teachers from 15 different NYC public schools come down to the boathouse to learn to row today. What a great group! Maybe it's because they spend their days teaching that they become good learners, either way, they did a wonderful job as a group and we had fun racing it up on the two training barges. If you know a New York City teacher who would like to learn to row and spread the word about Row New York, send them our way! And special thanks to the Row New Yorkers (pictured in the coaching launch above with Jennie) who volunteered their time to help out this morning.

College Rowers Return to Coach at Row NY

One of the highlights of my summer was getting to spend some time with our high school graduates who are home for the summer and working as assistant coaches for Row New York. They drove vans, coached hundreds of campers, helped middle schoolers into their first eights, and assisted with the adaptive program. They were also an inspiration to the current high school girls (and me too!)

From left to right, we have Monique, Rose, Camille, and Stephanie. Poor Charlotte, I think she was on a barge when this picture was taken. They are rising sophomores at Lehigh, Rutgers, Binghamton, University of Central Florida, and Monique will be a senior at Michigan State next month. It feels like I met Monique as a 9th grader yesterday, so I'm not sure how that happened.

The true highlight was racing with five of them at Capital Sprints a couple of weeks ago. I'd share the picture, but I was caught on camera fully turned around looking, in desperation, for the finish line. Oh no!

It was amazing to spend time with them as college students, to hear about what they're studying, to watch them talk to the current Row New Yorkers and share their stories about Row New York "way back when" and laugh, and laugh, and laugh. My face hurt from laughing so much. The rest of my body hurt too, but I think that was from the race.

Good luck to ALL of our college students this fall!

Row New York on NY1 News!

Row New York's adaptive program, run in partnership with NYU's Initiative for Women With Disabilities, was featured on NY1 news this week. Click here to see the piece and thanks to everyone who made this four day camp possible!

Busy Boathouse

As you can see from the pictures, the boathouse has been a busy place these days. The competitive girls start early (on the water by 7:30), followed by the Middle Schoolers (it looks like Nate still has them on the rope), NYU's Initiative for Women with Disabilities came out a little later in the morning along with campers from Powerplay (in the white shirts). So much fun to see so many young people on the water!

Hot

Triple digit temperatures didn’t slow things down at Row New York yesterday (well, maybe a little bit).

We had our youngest adaptive rower, Nathan, join us on the water, a visit from the Wheelchair Sports Federation, and special guest Laura Schwanger. Laura brought home the bronze from the first paralympic rowing event in Beijing in the women’s single.

We also had over 30 campers and, of course, our brave competitive girls gearing up for Capital Sprints in DC this Saturday.

Row NY's Adaptive Rowing Gets Started

Thanks to a generous grant from the JE & ZB Butler Foundation, Row New York's adaptive rowing program officially got started yesterday. We tried out all of our new equipment with our very willing and brave rowers, Victor and Joe. They did an excellent job providing feedback and getting the barge going. Joe was a good sport, even when his seat took a slight spill off the tracks. Special thanks to John Hamre as well! We're looking forward to Tuesday when we'll have The Wheelchair Sports Federation on the water with us.