2014

I can’t help but go back to my years in Iowa, there is truth in the famous line from the movie Field of Dreams, “If you build it, they will come!”. Come they did, with game on!

What an amazing year for our brand new rowing team! This has been a year of new friendships, and surprising growth. It has been a gift to find so many women and men that have their sites set on similar goals, working and training on your own, day in and day out. That dogged determination, and self discipline is what we depend on to drive our program. We appreciate the effort and commitment that you have made to your sport and your own fitness, as well as to each athlete on this team. More importantly we appreciate that when we come together it does feel like a team that is united, and working as one. Your focus on what we can do “together” is matched by your amazing generous personalities!

Results from 2014 are “golden” to say the least. We surprised ourselves at the Crew Classic. Fortunately the website was up and running, because Chinook had people talking in San Diego that weekend… and many of you found us because of our performance at that regatta.

Our summer racing was extraordinary – considering we barely knew one another and our introductions occurred as we were heading out for our initial races at Diamond States and U.S. Nationals! Diamond States was a blast, it always feels like we are in our own little world at St. Andrews. The coaching was great, and it was in Delaware that we started talking about Chinook becoming a men’s and women’s team. No egos, no bullshit, is pretty much the mantra at Chinook…and our only additional requirement to hard work. Our racing at both summer regattas was fantastic. I am not sure of the count at Nationals but we definitely won the C,D,and E women’s 8’s and cox 4’s! There were many more…such extraordinary racing!

We put our final stamp on things at the Head of the Charles with remarkable performances in each and every category we entered. The Senior Master 8+ tends to stand out starting 33rd and missing first place by less than .3 seconds, BUT don’t be fooled, the performance of the cox 4’s was INCREDIBLE! The four is a tough boat to jump into without practicing together and lay the hammer down, but we did it! It was CPR’s goal to have three solid crews that performed well. All 3 boats started in the 30’s and all were extraordinary, finishing 2nd in the 8, and 5th and 6th in our coxed fours! We could not be prouder of the efforts by each and every athlete.

Our final race of the season, the Head of the Hooch, had unfortunate cancellations to Saturdays race schedule which left some of our rowers without races. This does not happen often, but it was a reminder that we participate in a sport that is affected by wind and weather! We managed to pull off a few good races on Sunday with a mixed 8+ that left most of the competition in the their wake, winning by 30+ seconds. Our women’s 4x that looked absolutely amazing and despite a couple steering setbacks managed a good solid race, I think placing 5th thanks to Yesim’s gutsy steering (All the photos look terrific too!). Kerri Davis did a fantastic job, fearlessly representing in the lightweight master’s single. Well done, kudos to all of you.

We are so excited moving into the 2015 racing season. Marlene Royle is busy putting together a training plan that will work for all of us. Some of you may choose to opt out of the program as you work within the training plans that your home clubs offer. Whatever we do – lets make every effort to be stronger, more aggressive in our training, and support one another throughout the year.

Chinook is after all a team, and an extraordinary team at that! Lets see what we can do in 2015!