Some time ago, I was talking with a teammate at coffee about rowing skills development. Periodically, teammates have expressed an interest in rowing practices that have a strong emphasis on technique, but we have a dilemma in that we have really limited time during our regular practice, and also often want to fit in a good workout, too. Somewhere in the conversation, I mentioned how, back in 2007-2008, we had a pair of coaches come to visit us in Arizona to offer a weekend sculling clinic. These coaches actually still travel and lead rowing clinics, which meant there might be a chance they could come to Albany and do the same for us.

My teammate really liked the idea, and what's more, she was willing and able to figure out how to implement it. She figured out a good weekend, she convinced the club's Board, she worked with the coaches, and she got 19 of us registered for it all (oh, and she kept us all really well-fed!).

And it was great, in a hundred different big and small ways. From the clinic I came to appreciate that my general template for an effective rowing stroke is matched to the template they coach. Because they came to our club, they were able to offer my teammates and I a series of recommendations on how to adjust all of our equipment to get it to work better for us, along with clear explanations for why. (and recommendations on what to look for in future equipment acquisitions). They even gave those of us with coaching roles/aspirations a chance to ride along in a safety launch to observe how they conducted the rowing clinic sessions. This sort of thing is incredibly helpful for developing one's eye for good technique and technical issues.

And they kept it all very fun!







More than anything, it was helpful to have time out on the river to row and pause and do drills at a much more relaxed pace.

That said, we were split up into morning and afternoon groups, and my afternoon group had a more interesting time of things because of the weather. The water stayed calm and flat on Friday, but by Saturday afternoon, the wind had picked up coming out of the south, as it tends to do when storms are rolling in. That meant whitecaps.

When the water gets to be more rough, it is a whole lot easier to go out in larger boats, because they are inherently more stable. Unfortunately, my subgroup consisted of 5 rowers, which you might note is a number not evenly divisible by 2. When coaches asked, I said I was willing to take one for the team by continuing to go out in a single, while everyone else grouped together into a quad.

Being in a less stable boat makes it much more difficult to work on refining one's rowing stroke, because every little muscle twitch translates into wiggle of the boat. On the other hand, we haven't yet figured out how to control regatta weather, so it can be useful to practice rowing in rough water just to learn how to cope with it. I know I have a tendency to get really tense in rough conditions when I'm in a single, so the chop, gusts of wind, and swells were a good time to work through some of those reactions. The clinic was an especially good time for it all because we were in relatively small groups, it was daylight out, the water was warm, and we had no need to be in a big hurry.

There were also a number of other watercraft out in the middle of the day, that we rarely or never see first thing in the morning, like this cruise boat that is usually moored to a sea wall up in Troy:



Our conditions on Sunday afternoon were the most challenging. When it's windy, the water in the center of the river is naturally the most rough. The coaches had noted that there was a section along the river's far shore that was a bit sheltered, so they came up with a plan for us to go over to that section and row up in down in the best water we could find.

Just one small obstacle: we had to cross the nastiest water and get over there in the first place*. During the crossing, I had a couple moments where I just had to stop and float, despairingly: I was too far away from where I had started to be able to easily turn back, but still very far from the opposite shore. To make matters more interesting, I'd had to deal with several larger swells (maybe 1.5-foot waves?) that had curled up and over my boat's decks, filling up my foot well. There was nothing to do but wait, give myself a moment, then keep going, sloshing along. After what felt like ages, I finally reached more protected water, and could instantly feel myself relaxing. I used my hands to bail most of the water out of the foot well, and got to do some rowing.

As our session progressed, our coach had us turn back downriver in the direction of the dock, but continue to hug the far shore. We passed back south through the train bridge as the wind and water conditions continued to deteriorate. Then we had a choice to make: should we attempt to cross back over the river to the docks, or turn north again and find somewhere else to cross?

I opted to cross then and there, but let the coach know it definitely wasn't going to be a pretty crossing. Once more, unto the breach.

Twice towards the very end I almost went for a swim, once when one oar got stuck in a wave, once when I attempted to hand-bail in swells that were still too steep. Lesson learned, wait for calmer water before hand-bailing.

But on the other hand, I am so pleased with how the Wild Blue Yonder handled the waves. Even with the foot well full of water, I had enough remaining buoyancy I could continue to row, and do so without major risk of equipment damage. This is in contrast to one of the club's quads, that swamped to the point where the rowers were up to their waists in water and could barely row or do anything. (most rowing shells at that point are also at very high risk of damage from strains and stresses). And the shape of the Wild Blue Yonder's seat deck and foot well are such that the boat won't ever fill with more water than what I took on.

That doesn't make my boat invincible, by any stretch: it seems that my sealed bow and stern compartments both leak, the leaks are just slow enough that I have some time to travel before all hope is lost. So I am not going to make a habit of rowing in those sorts of conditions.

In any case, quite a time.



And as I noted, a great camp.



*I just want to emphasize that a ton of talk and strategy go into crossings. The typical convention is to cross perpendicular to the main direction of travel, but this doesn't work well when there are waves moving parallel to the crossing. So when there are waves, the crossing has to be made at an angle. But the waves will also push watercraft back to parallel, so both forward movement and the direction of travel have to be managed in the middle of a rough crossing. I also figured out that I could benefit from doing more work to read the wind and waves - take it easier in larger swells, pick up the pace in smaller swells, anticipate what is arriving before it arrives. Sailors seem to love that stuff.