Rockies Rowing Club has been getting into the racing spirit, with the season already well underway.
Recently, the club attended the Lap the Lake Regatta in Vernon on June 8. The club participated in a 3.5-kilometre head race and 500-metre sprint races.
The course for the regatta is on Swan Lake, which is a triangular shape — the start and finish line are the same. It is described as a challenging course because faster boats can overtake slower boats, but will have difficulty seeing where they are going. Throughout the course, the rowers will have three turns around three large buoys.
In the head race, Rockies Rowing Club had two boats participate. There was a quad, with junior rowers and a double with master rowers. A junior rower is 19 years old and under, while masters rowers are 21 years old and older.
The quad finished the 3.5 kilometre race in 20:16.31, a personal best for the crew. The double finished in 28:07.68.
In the 500-metre sprint races, the quad rowers split into two doubles where they rowed 2:11.62 and 2:26.95 respectively.
One double then split into two singles, where they rowed the 500 metres finishing first and second in the 12 boat, W1x race. Josie Schmidt narrowly nosed out Emily Sartorel by one stroke for the win. Their times were 1:52.59 and 1:53.70 at the finish.
Sartorel and Schmidt combined with two rowers from Vernon and placed first in the women’s quad race with a time of 1:54.83.
Another combined quad included rowers from South Cariboo Rowing Club and the Rockies Rowing Club, they rowed a 2:19.80 500-metre sprint.
READ MORE: Rockies Rowing successful at Delta regatta
On June 14-16 Rowing Canada Aviron (RCA) hosted speed orders for U23, U21 and PanAm Games. The speed orders are races that give coaches with the RCA information for selection to Canada’s national team in the various categories.
Katie Clark, from Cranbrook, raced in the U21 women’s single each day. Clark is also a former downhill ski racer. Clark is trying to make the team to represent Canada at the U21 regattas for the rest of the racing season.
Her results from the speed orders are as followed
•June 14: 2,000-metre in 7:10.53 for fourth place
•June 15: first race in 2,000 metres at 7:51.35 for first place; second race in 8:16.39 for second place. With these races, she was put in the A category for the finals.
•June 16: The finals – L. Munro, U23, from Queens University finished first with a time of 7:26.54; Clark, U21, finished second with a time of 7:37.75; and Club Aviron de Sherbrooke, A. Burnotte, U21, finished third with a time of 7:38.41.
More information about the rowing club can be found here.
