VCB sent two crews to the 43rd annual Snow Row, a gathering and celebration of traditional rowing craft and open water rowing. The race is a 3 3/4 mile triangular course around a few islands and sand spits in Hull Bay. VCB’s youth crew rowing Warrior, a cox-4 Dory, finished, the race in 35.20 minutes. They were rewarded with golden clamshells for finishing first in their category (Youth Cox-4). The adult crew, rowing Whitehall Gig Integrity finished the race with a time of 43.51 minutes.
Early on the Saturday morning before Thanksgiving, dozens of youth rowers descended on the Hull Lifesaving Museum’s Boston Rowing Center for HLM’s annual Icebreaker Youth Race. Billed as the Northeast Regional Youth Open-Water Rowing Championships, Icebreaker draws middle school and high school age rowers to Fort Point Channel in downtown Boston. Participants row coxed fours and sixes in four categories: middle school crews, first boats (the equivalent of varsity level), second boats (the equivalent of junior varsity level), and novice crews. The race features two events — the Crewmaster Sprints and a distance challenge (the Nautical Mile for first and second boats) — with winners announced for each event.
After several years’ of races cancelled due to COVID, this was the first Icebreaker race held in three years. Fortunately, our crews were accompanied and coached by Stone Su, an alumnus of VCB’s youth programming. A dedicated rower and participant in VCB’s youth boatbuilding program, Stone was able to share his firsthand Icebreaker experience with our coxswains. The following is his race recap:
We got to the Barking Crab restaurant pretty early after a brisk and cold walk from the hotel. The organizers gave a quick speech about the return of the race after the pandemic, highlighting the fact that for the vast majority of rowers/coxswains, it was their first time at Icebreaker.
After that it was straight into the first heat of the three sprints, where the second crew (Chris Dong, David Siniscalco, Jonathan Valdez, Mason Yam and coxed by Michelle Huang) would race against Sound School. Both boats had some troubles with navigating the race course yet in the end, VCB trailed Sound School by about half a minute.
Following a short break and some frustration fueled pancakes and syrup, VCB rallied back and blew the competition out of the water, finishing almost two and a half minutes ahead of their competition and fastest among their division for that round. The third round was a nail biter. VCB lead only by a boat length or so for most of the course and after some magnificent turning maneuvers from both coxswains, it was a neck and neck battle down the home stretch. In a last ditch stretch of powers and synchronized shouts, VCB edged out another win by only a few seconds.
Concurrently, the first crew (Daniel Elliott, Hanson He, Abi Johnson, Preston Thomsen and coxed by Mary Harvey) had their races follow just a few minutes after the second crew’s. With a slightly different race course than the seconds, course navigation mishaps struck again for VCB and their competitors from Burlington High School. But after some corrections and a lot of hard rowing, VCB cruised comfortably to the finish. The second round was very similar, both crews putting up consistent times and VCB punching in another win. In the third sprint, VCB decided to turn the engines up a notch, slicing through the water and recording the fastest time of the day for the coxed fours.
Finally came the nautical mile. After a dominant day with the sprints, the VCB first crew crushed everyone in the final race. A single white boat with a coxswain wearing a white hat, VCB came out to a huge lead and managed to keep it as every other boat chased after their wakes.
With their strong performance at the races, VCB’s youth crews brought home Icebreaker hardware to put into the trophy case for the first time in over five years! VCB’s first boat crew won a first place plaque and the John E. Lawrence Nautical Mile Coxed Four trophy. VCB’s second boat crew earned a second place plaque. The plaques will remain at the Boathouse, but our crews will bring the Nautical Mile trophy back to Boston next year to defend their title!
After the remnants of Hurricane Nicole roared through the region, bringing gale warnings and high winds, the Village Community Boathouse’s Youth Race was pushed back a day to Sunday, November 13, 2022. An annual celebration of high school crews from New York City and the northeast, the VCB youth race is a free invitational designed to maximize the number of youth rowers that are able to test their skills at the end of the rowing season.
This year, three open water rowing organizations, all hailing from New York City, participated in the contest to crown the best high school crews in the Big Apple. Rocking the Boat sent one novice crew, Knot Today. Urban Assembly Harbor School sent two novice crews (Pier Pressure and Chloe & the Four Dwarves) and two seasoned crews (Oops All Bows and Bulkheads). Village Community Boathouse sent one novice crew (Sea-Men) and two seasoned crews (Wet Sox and Bay-Gulls the Second). Rowers eligible to participate in the novice category started rowing in or after September 2021.
The VCB Youth Race follows its traditional three part format designed to test the abilities of each crew and coxswain. The first part of the race is the timed basin laps, comprised of three timed laps around the embayment south of Pier 40. The slowest time is dropped and the two remaining times averaged. The seasoned crews were separated by the narrowest of margins, finishing in order: Harbor School’s Bulkheads (3:26.5), VCB’s Wet Sox (3:27), Harbor School’s Oops All Bows (3:43.5), and VCB’s Bay-Gulls the Second (3:46.5). Equally exciting were the novice time trials, with two crews registering identical times: VCB’s Sea-Men (3:52.5), Harbor School’s Pier Pressure (4:14.5), Harbor School’s Chloe & The Four Dwarves (4:14.5), and RTB’s Knot Today (4:27).
The second event of VCB’s Youth Race is the Nautical Mile River Race. Designed to test each crew’s endurance and pacing over a longer distance, performance in this portion is helped by each coxswain’s understanding of how the Hudson River’s currents affect the boat. (Currents are generally stronger further out into the channel and each pier creates its own mini eddy of current.) Crews rowed south to VCB’s chase boat, positioned as a race marker off the tip of Pier 26, made a port turn, then returned to the start line in the middle of the basin south of the Boathouse. The seasoned crews again saw little separation between two crews: Bulkheads (11:42), Wet Sox (12:14), Oops All Bows (12:15), and Bay-Gulls the Second (13:36). The novice crews finished in order: Pier Pressure (12:46), Sea-Men (13:08), Chloe & the Four Dwarves (16:34), and Knot Today (18:29).
The third and final event of the VCB Youth Race is the head to head sprints. Seasoned and novice crews each take a turn on the water, lined up alongside the entirety of their competition for a frenzied sprint along the length of Pier 40. Stopwatches are tossed aside as the judges take their positions at the finish line, eyes peeled to see who breaks the plane first. After last year’s photo finish, slow motion video capture was on hand in case we needed to review the finish frame by frame again. After about a minute and a half of dozens of oars splashing furiously, the weary crews end their days triumphantly. Seasoned: Wet Sox, Bulkheads, Oops All Bows, and Bay-Gulls the Second. Novice: Sea-Men, Pier Pressure, Knot Today, and Chloe & the Four Dwarves.
Individual event winners are known to all, but points are awarded in reverse finish order and tabulated to determine overall winners for the day. Harbor School’s Bulkheads won the seasoned category with a total of 11 points. Close on their keels were VCB’s Wet Sox (10 points), Harbor School’s Oops All Bows (6 points), and VCB’s Bay-Gulls the Second (3 points). VCB’s Sea-Men finished first in the novice category with 11 points. They were followed by Harbor School’s Pier Pressure (9.5 points), Harbor School’s Chloe & the Four Dwarves (5.5 points), and RTB’s Knot Today (4 points).
A Huge Thank You to all participants, coaches, and volunteers! Special thanks to Michael for entertaining spectators and keeping crews informed, Marcel for serving as dockmaster, Frank and Sally for feeding the hungry masses, and all of our timekeepers and judges without whom this would just have been four gigs jockeying for position and getting in each other’s ways. We’ll see everyone back down at Pier 40 next November for another iteration of our Youth Race!
On a brisk autumn weekend, a racing contingent from the Village Community Boathouse made its annual fall journey to Hull, Massachusetts to participate in the Hull Lifesaving Museum’s Head of the Weir River Race. The race course is a spectacular five and a half mile stretch that takes participants from the head of the Weir River, under a bridge lined by cheering spectators, through Hingham Bay, and finally to the finish line marked by the pier at HLM’s Pemberton Point boathouse.
A last minute change to the race course, made amid concerns of erosion caused by crews walking on the boggy marsh, shortened the race by a quarter mile. All participating craft queued up to await the horn that signaled the start of each boat’s time. Rowers were sent off in the traditional order: singles, doubles, coxed fours, then the behemoth pilot gigs that would attempt the chase down the field.
This year’s youth crew comprised of a mix of familiar faces and first time racers. Coxed by Youth Rowing Coordinator Mary Harvey, who started rowing in VCB’s youth program pre-COVID, the youth crew placed first in their category with an enviable time of 1:01:06. So skilled was this crew, not even the adult coxed four crews were able to catch up!
With short notice leading to a limited number of rowers available, VCB’s adult crew became an amalgam of rowers from New York, New Jersey, and Rhode Island. This hodgepodge performed admirably, finishing with a time of 57:35, which landed the crew in the middle of the pack — the fleet of pilot gigs finished with times ranging from 51:59 to 1:45:52 — not bad for a group that hadn’t met each other until the day of the race!
Gratitude to Don Betts for lending VCB the use of his boats for this race. Image credit Sean Baggett Photography.
On Saturday, May 14th, VCB and Harbor School joined forces to send crews and boats to New Haven Harbor to compete in Sound School’s annual Elm City Open Water Challenge. The race, which took place on the waterfront by The Sound School, consisted of two timed heats followed followed by a one mile sprint.
The VCB Youth Rowers placed 1st in the Final One Mile Sprint and 2nd in total time for their Intermediate category.
Special thanks to Andrew Leung for organizing and chaperoning the VCB Youth Rowers on the train to New Haven. Thanks to Dave Clayton for wrangling boats and kids and Sean Lynch for driving. We are also most grateful to Roy Arrezo and his Harbor School alumnae and rowers for all their hard work wrangling boats and working with Sound School to make this a safe and fun event.
