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Regatta on tap for today
5/3/2008 12:01 AM   0 comments on this story E-mail this story to a friend


By MICHAEL PAUL
Staff writer
Like golf and tennis, rowing is a sport that someone can enjoy throughout his or her life. And older rowers will get that chance Saturday morning at Langley Pond in the Aiken-Augusta Masters Rowing Regatta.
Up to 200 rowers - all masters rowers who no longer are in college - are expected to compete. They will row a 1,000-meter course that has a national reputation of excellence.
This is a sprint regatta, in which rowers in up to six lanes will race against one another. This is different from head regattas, in which rowers in single file race against the clock.
Most regattas are for those in college or in high school and attract dozens of teams. Masters regattas are smaller, yet 11 teams have entries in the today's races: the Atlanta Rowing Club, the Augusta Rowing Club, the Catawba Yacht Club, the Columbia Rowing Club, Frederica Academy, the Jacksonville Rowing Club, the Lake Lanier Rowing Club, the New Bern Boat Club, the New York Athletic Club and the Raleigh Rowing Center.
Rowers from six states have entered the regatta. There are entries for singles, doubles, pairs without coxswain, fours with coxswain, quads and eights.
In doubles and quads, each rower uses two oars to propel the shell. In pairs and fours, each rower uses one oar to propel the shell.
The singles class - one rower with two oars - is one of the more popular events, and six of the 22 categories at this masters regatta are for singles.
Michael Townsend of the Augusta Rowing Club will be competing in his first masters regatta. He will race in the singles, the doubles and the eights. Each offers a different sense of accomplishment.
"In an eight," he said, "I usually am in the stroke seat, so I am leading the boat, in a sense. You sort of have this feeling that you initiated the race and helped lead the way. It's not that you do the majority of the work but that that was your job, to initiate every stroke and to lead the team and set a rhythm for the boat. It's the other guys' job to provide the raw power.
"But in the singles, you do everything. You provide the raw power and the rhythm."
In the doubles, the shell is the main factor.
"It's not a very forgiving boat," Townsend said. "In the eights, they are so big that if your strokes are not quite right, you can't tell. In the doubles, you can feel everything. If your partner is just the slightest bit off, you can feel it. If you happen to change the rhythm a little bit and your partner holds to the original rhythm, you feel it. The boat can tip very easily. It is very precarious. There is more of a sense of real teamwork in having the two strokes molding together very well.
"In the eights, if the strokes are very close, then that feels fine. In the doubles, if they're just a little bit off, you easily feel it."
Another difference between the masters regatta and the other regattas is the training of the rowers. Masters rowers, because they have jobs and other responsibilities, are unable to train as much as rowers in high school or college.
"The high schoolers train two and a half hours a day," Townsend said. "Masters train consistently throughout the year, but the level of training and the intensity is just different.
"I think the masters rowers row just as hard as they can, just like the collegiate rowers. But I think the sense and the feel of disappointment for not winning or not doing your best at the collegiate or high school level is greater because you've invested more."
This is the ninth Aiken-Augusta Masters Rowing Regatta, which is an accomplishment, Townsend said, considering that there are not as many masters rowers as there are high school and college rowers.
"Just to have it around nine years in a row is fairly remarkable," Townsend said. "It means the level of competition is quite good."



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