Wasatch Head Race

Each fall there is a local rowing race (both scull and sweep) at the Jordanelle Reservoir, which is where I row.  I didn't get good enough to race. Perhaps next year?  However, I was good enough to be a volunteer and photographer.  There were competitors from around Utah, Colorado and a handful from Arizona.

This is the first time I have been around all these boats.  I can't imagine driving around with a trailer full of fours and eights.  They seem like they are a mile long.

This is the Park City Rowing Academy's girls 8 team holding up their boat for a safety inspection.  When you are a young, startup team, you can't afford the incredible expense of new boats.  They purchased this one, fixed it up, but because of the wet, cold weather, didn't have time to paint it.

Why all the fog on the water?  Because the water was still mildly warm and the air was 27.  Brrrrr.

Worse, the winds were picking up, making a fair amount of chop.  Once you got across the reservoir into the protected leg where the race was run, you were OK.  Getting across the open water was pretty risky and later in the day they only let the bigger boats go across to compete.  I would have been swimming for sure if I had been in the little single I practiced in.

Half the time I was stationed at the race start.  Notice how the water is calmer here.

This is Susie and Dayna (looking over her shoulder). Dayna is my ever so patient rowing instructor.  These ladies were smoking the competition.  They passed four boats, all of which had big head starts. Dayna had never raced in a double before.

The very end of the race course was back in the open water.  The four is so big and heavy that it is fairly stable, but notice how the oars are all splashing through the waves.  You see the four rowers, but do you see the coxswain?  In front, laying down, the coxswain gives commands to steer, coordinate, and motivate the efforts.  In some of the boats, the coxswain sits in the back of the boat and on a day like this, they got soaked.

Hoping that next year I will be out sculling instead of spectating.