Testing on the water continues
Rowing clubs use Central Ontario championship as another stepping-stone to Henley
Training camp heading into the 137th Royal Canadian Henley Regatta continued on the weekend in St. Catharines.
Officially, the competition held Saturday on Martindale was the Central Ontario Rowing Association (CORA) Championship. Unofficially, and for all intents and purposes, it gave coaches from 19 clubs, including five from Niagara Region, a chance to scout the competition and yet another opportunity to size up how their crews will fare against that competition.
“These regattas leading up to the Henley are measurements,” South Niagara Rowing Club coach Bob Young said.
“You go into your training, you do time trials, but you come out here, and kind of put a test together. You’re testing out your boat speed, and you’re seeing what your competition is doing.”
He suggested South Niagara, which rows out of the Great Dain course in Welland and entered 29 crews at CORA, was in the same boat when it came to keeping on eye on the competition.
“Everybody is experimenting with different combinations,” Young said. “The unknown entity at Henley is what’s coming up from the U.S. or Mexico or sometimes Argentina, or maybe someone from Europe shows up.”
While it was hot and sunny, conditions on the water were less than ideal at times.
A tailwind made rowing back to Henley Island or the start line challenging.
“They could be worse if it were a headwind because then it’s really rough out here,” Young said.
“It’s a tailwind, so it’s forgiving even though it is difficult because the water is unpredictable. It pops up as you’re going for the next stroke and get slapped. You got to try and recover.”
Young said the weather could pose as much of a challenge in rowing as opposing crews.
“You want to see how they execute when the conditions are co-operative.”
Where Niagara Falls Rowing Club’s 35 entries finished in the field didn’t matter all that much to Wernher Verbraeken, a coach with the four-year club, and along with head coach Tony Arcuri, its co-founder.
“The goal is here is to get as many kids as much racing experience as possible, and to try to start identifying some crew combinations that are moving the boat really well so we can start preparing for Henley,” Verbraeken said.
“You always keep an eye out for which events have greater potential than other events.”
The Niagara Falls club will be going to St. Catharines Invitational Saturday but not to London, Ont., the following week for the provincial club championships.
While the club’s strengths are in sculling events, Verbraeken suggested young athletes hoping to receive a scholarship to row at a Division 1 university program in the U.S. aren’t necessarily at a disadvantage if they have focused on using two oars for most of their careers.
“You can do either. Where the scholarship attention really comes is on the physical health of the athlete: height and strength and fitness play the biggest factor,” he said.
“They do primarily sweep rowing in the U.S., so that’s where the scholarships tend to lean toward.
“But if you’re proficient at sculling, they’ll still take you and teach you how to sweep.”
Unlike the Henley course on Martindale Pond, Notre Dame Rowing Club’s home course in Welland is sheltered and relatively calm most of the time.
“The conditions on this course are pretty challenging,” Bill Burgoyne, the club’s junior men’s coach, said.
“It’s always changing, so it’s good to get them on a course like this. This has current and a crosswind and an island that opens up about three-quarters the way through.
“We’re lucky that we’re locals, so we do come here quite a lot.”
Notre Dame’s strength heading into Henley, which this year takes place Aug. 6 to 11, is its sculling program.
“We have some strong doubles and quads,” Burgoyne said. “They would be our best chances at Henley.”
Notre Dame entered 24 boats at the CORA Championship.
It took Sudbury Rowing Club six hours to bring six boats and five athletes to St. Catharines for the one-day competition, but the trip was well worth it to head coach Amanda Schweinbenz.
“You always keep an eye out for which events have greater potential than other events.” WERNHER VERBRAEKEN Niagara Falls Rowing Club coach
“It’s good experience. Good racing experience. Get them ready to Ontarios and the Henley,” said Schweinbenz, also head rowing coach at Laurentian University.
“They’re all really training. We’re not focusing on them winning. We’re focusing on them developing and getting better, improving their technique and racing ability,” Schweinbenz added.
Schweinbenz already has an idea who will make up the Sudbury crews at Henley.
“Again, today is focusing on technical ability and improving their ability to maintain technique throughout a race at a race pace.”
Forty per cent of the Sudbury contingent at CORA are courtesy of Bill and Rhonda Stewart from Charlotte, N.C.
Their daughter Tinsley, 17, and son Will, 14, row with the club while the family spends the summer at a cottage in the Sudbury area.
Tinsley laughed when asked if she feels like a Tar Heel who has lost her footing rowing for a club from northern Ontario.
“The summer season is not that long. I think we only miss like two weeks at the beginning,” she said.
“I’ve known the people here for the past two years, so I feel pretty at home here, too.”
Stewart wasn’t worried about potential competition as much as wanted to get an understanding of how the water moves.
“It can be confusing how buoys work and how the lanes work. You want to know how it’s going to be when you’re racing.”
Stewart, who finished fourth in a double in her first race Saturday, said in terms of potentially rough conditions, Martindale Pond is more comparable to Lake Wylie, her home course in Charlotte than to Lake Ramsey in Sudbury.
St. Catharines Rowing Club had a regatta-high 122 entries, while Ridley Graduate Boat Club was registered to send 26 boats to the starting line.