Hello, and welcome aboard! I'm Rosalie Carbone, membership chair of the Riverside Rowing Club. By day I'm a CPA, which means my year has a very bad week in the middle of April. I sat in a rowing shell for the first time at age 46, in the fall of 1990, because a client of mine would not stop talking about it at our meetings. I went to one Learn to Row session to get him to hush. Nine years later I row in the five seat of our women's masters eight, I scull a double on Tuesdays with a woman who is seventeen years older than I am and faster, and my client has switched accountants. (Not because of rowing. He moved to Ocala.)

If you are reading this and thinking you're too old, too out of shape or too busy, I promise you we have heard it before, usually from people who are now on our racing roster. Read on, then come down to the boathouse some morning and watch.

About Us

The Riverside Rowing Club was started in 1984 by six former college rowers who missed the water. Today we are 86 members, ages 23 to 72, and most of us never rowed a stroke before we came here. We row on the Hillsborough River north of downtown, from a boathouse with a long floating dock and a coffee pot that is never empty. Our club blades are navy with a river-blue stripe, like the oars at the top of this page.

In rowing, masters means adults. For racing purposes it starts at age 27, and there are age groups all the way up, with older crews given a time handicap in many races. But you don't have to race to be a member. About half of us never do. We row because there is nothing like it.

Two ways to row. In sweep rowing, each rower holds one oar with both hands. Sweep boats are pairs, fours and eights. In sculling, each rower has two oars, one in each hand. Sculling boats are singles, doubles and quads. Eights always carry a coxswain, who sits in the stern facing the crew, steers, and calls the race. Some fours and quads carry one too. Our coxswains are some of the most important people in the club and we are always looking for more. If you are small and loud, please call us.

Our fleet: two eights, three fours, two quads, four doubles, seven singles, a dozen ergometers, and one coaching launch with a temperamental outboard.

Masters Practices

Why so early? Because at dawn the river is glass. Later in the morning the wind comes up, the powerboats come out, and the heat sets in, and by noon in August you wouldn't want to be out there anyway. This time of year the sun comes up around 7:20, so most of a weekday practice happens in the dark with our lights on. Then, somewhere on the last piece, the sky goes pink behind the eight, the mullet start jumping, and you understand why we do this.

Learn to Row: Fall 1999

Before October 2, every new rower must pass the swim test (see Safety, below). We'll give it at a city pool on Thursday, September 30, at 6:00 p.m. Laurel Meagher, our Learn to Row coordinator, rowed in college and has the patience of a saint. Spring Learn to Row starts in March.

Not sure you can do it? Last spring's class ran from 24 to 68 years old. Catherine Hamm, a nurse who works nights, came out of that class and raced in her first regatta in May. Our oldest rower, Helen Kempton, started at 60, sculls a single at 72, and has gone up to Boston twice to race the Head of the Charles.

What to Wear

• Snug clothes. Bike shorts or tights and a fitted T-shirt. Baggy shorts catch in the seat wheels and loose shirts catch the oar handles. You'll only make that mistake once.
• Socks. The shoes are bolted into the boat. You step into them.
• Layers in winter. Yes, Florida has a winter, for about nine mornings in January.
• A hat, sunglasses with a strap, and sunscreen. The sun off the water is no joke.
• A water bottle with your name on it. Two in summer.
• No jewelry that dangles, and leave the watch with the big buckle at home.

Safety

Practicing for your swim test? Have a look at Masters Swimming After 50, a page about swimming laps with a masters club.

Dues

You can tell a CPA wrote this part. Paying a year in advance saves a rower $60 over twelve monthly payments, a couple $60, and a coxswain $20. So if you start with Learn to Row this fall, here is your whole bill through the end of 2000:

And no, your dues are not tax-deductible. I get asked.

Fall 1999 Regattas

Fall is head race season. In a head race the boats start one at a time, ten or fifteen seconds apart, and race the clock over a long course, usually three miles or so, with plenty of passing and some creative steering. (Spring is for sprints, side by side over 1,000 meters for masters.)

The most famous head race in this country, the Head of the Charles, runs three miles up the Charles River in Boston every October. We aren't sending a boat this year, but our president, Anne Hinojosa, and two of the women from the eight are flying up to watch, and they've promised a full report.

Club Officers, 1999