Sixteen teams from four different rowing groups including Newburgh, Sound School, Harbor School (UANYHS) and Stuyvesant High School competed in the fourth annual VCB Youth Race. The wind was whipping at 16 mph out of the southwest making it a challenging day for the crews.About 150 people attended the event.

The day started with a race against the clock around the perimeter the buoys in the mooring field. The Girls winner was “G Boat” from Harbor School had the best combined time of 8:28 minutes. The three mixed winners were “Corsairs B1” from Newburgh with the third best time in the group at 7:03 minutes. The “A Squad” from Harbor School clocked in at 6:47 minutes. The Stuyvesant “Flying Sea Monkeys” logged the best combined time of 6:30 Minutes and also had the best single time of 3:14 minutes around the buoys.

The Girls final was deemed a tie due to inadequate instructions to the crews and bad communications with the race starter. However, it was an exciting which included at least two T-bone collisions and one oar lost and recovered. The mixed final, a race to the Sanitation Pier and back was won by the Stuyvesant High School team “Flying Sea Monkeys.”

All the coaches agreed that Youth Rowing in NYC has come a long way since a decade ago when the NYC teams would place last or in the back of the pack in Hull lifesaving Museum’s Icebreaker Race, the fixed seat championship races. In the last three years youth crews from VCB have come to dominate top positions in their class of boat.

Tony Rentschler shot this video of the Youth Race:

http://vimeo.com/32023328