Welcome to BAIR ISLAND NEWS, BIAC's electronic newsletter. The purpose of BIN is to communicate with members about the Center's activities and programs, to promote a greater sense of community within BIAC, and to spread awareness of BIAC's activities beyond the membership list.

Your comments and contributions are always welcome. Please email them to the editor, Craig Canine. Thanks!

IN THIS ISSUE

GENERAL BIAC NEWS

  • New Admin Team

PADDLING NEWS

  • Wavechaser Series Visits Treasure Island and Alcatraz

ROWING NEWS

COMING EVENTS

GENERAL BIAC NEWS

New Admin Team

Effective December 2003, BIAC Board Members approved the creation of an office management team to assist with the day-to-day administrative tasks of running the Center. The team, which is now in place, consists of Claire Biron, Cindy Lee, and Anny Choi. All three are members of BIAC's Hui Wa’a outrigger paddling program. Their joint role includes serving as a point of contact for BIAC-related issues, managing the Center's membership database, creating monthly financial reports, and invoicing for dues. The admin team may also be contacted for issues regarding mail, e-mail, voicemail, membership status/dues, cleaning supplies, forms, boat rack space/rental, website content and other general inquiries.

Office hours are generally Monday and Tuesday evenings and Sunday mornings.
The team may also be contacted via e-mail or phone.
Contact info: bairisland@earthlink.net
Claire Biron greenbiscuit@yahoo.com 650-572-1965
Cindy Lee clee@cmri-ca.org 415-710-0129
Anny Choi anny_choi@hotmail.com 650-464-4740

PADDLING NEWS

"Oh boy, what a weekend for paddling. I don't know about you guys but I didn't even compete and I was stoked. The weatherman called for rain but we really lucked out. Once again the winter challenge dodged another weather bullet. Sunny skies gave way to two great days of paddling. As soon as the events were over, the rain came down."

Click here to see the rest of Mike Ng's colorful account of the Valentine's Day weekend races, with photos.

The Stanford Flatwater Kayak Team is the latest program to move in to BIAC's facilities. Founded in the fall of 2001 by Gina Sanchez when she was a Stanford grad student, the team until recently worked out on the lagoon at Redwood Shores. With more than 20 paddlers drawn from the Stanford community, the team paddles Olympic-class sprint kayaks, which have a distinctive diamond shape and are notoriously tippy -- but fast.

This year the team hopes to add Olympic flatwater kayaking to rugby, lacrosse, judo, bicycling, badminton, and Ultimate Frisbee as an official Club Sport at Stanford. And from there, Gina hopes, it's on to Varsity status. Meanwhile, Gina and other team members are helping to lay the groundwork for more paddling activities at BIAC, including a junior paddling program and the Center's own dragon-boating program. Welcome, Stanford kayakers!

ROWING NEWS

The BIAC Regatta Committee is hard at work planning Henley by the Bay (HBTB), to be held on May 1 & 2 at Redwood Shores. HBTB is a 2k race that attempts to capture, on a much smaller scale, the unique features of the Royal Henley Regatta held on the Thames River in England each year during the week of July 4th. In this format, two boats race against each other in each heat; winners move on to the next round. We're also pleased to announce that HBTB will be held in conjunction with the Cal-Stanford race and will be co-sponsored by Stanford University.

The current Regatta Committee consists of the following BIAC volunteers:

Regatta Chairperson: Kevyn Allard
Regatta Director: Kristin Henny
Volunteer Coordinator: Eric Pearson
Logo Design: George Willett
Marketing: Linda Lyddon
Registration: Claire Biron
T-Shirt Sales: Nora Cain
Sponsorship Coordinators: Fiona Ashley and Jenny Antons

Fiona and Jenny would like to invite anyone interested in helping with the sponsorship effort to get in touch with them -- the more help they can get, the more successful the regatta will be as a fundraiser for BIAC (read: new equipment and upkeep of existing equipment).

This promises to be a fun and exciting event, and a first for BIAC (HBTB was last held two years ago by California Rowing Association, which is no longer organizing events). Of course, the committee will need many more volunteers for the regatta itself, so stay tuned and get ready to sign up when Eric Pearson puts out the call.    - Kevyn Allard

More than 500 athletes, including nearly 50 adults and juniors from BIAC, competed in the 5th Annual Peninsula Indoor Rowing Championships in the Burlingame High School gym on Feb. 1. BIAC women swept the field in the Women's Open category, with Karen Osman, Kristin Henny, and Jenny Antons taking 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place respectively. Fiona Ashley won the gold in the Women's Lightweight division, and Tyler Morse took home silver in the Women's 30-39 category. Gabe Gunderson came in first in the Men's Open category, and Jordan Fong took third place in Men's Lightweight.

Twenty-six BIAC Juniors (including coxes) made a great showing with a just about everyone on the team pulling their personal best time (and the few who didn't were within 4 seconds of their best). Special congratulations go to Carla Malattia (4th place) and Ashley Chandran (6th place) out of 75 competitors in the Junior Novice Women's category, and Will Wick (12th place) and Mike Ortalda (19th place) out of 84 ergers in the Junior Novice Men's.

• Goodbye to Coach Jenny
In February we said goodbye to our program’s founder and coach, Jenny Antons. To send Jenny off properly, we had a potluck dinner at Julie and Chuck King’s house, where we roasted Jenny and she roasted us back! We all wish Jenny the best, and of course she will continue to row as part of BIAC’s Advanced Women’s crew.

Photo (right): Jenny gets ready to eat ALL the desserts.

• New Coach
We are delighted to announce that JP Sekulich has joined us as our new head coach. JP rowed at St. Ignatius High School in San Francisco and at Cal Berkeley. He is presently the Frosh coach at S.I. and also teaches swimming at the Peninsula YMCA. JP has a keen eye and we’re looking forward to continuing our development as rowers under his instruction.

• New Novice Masters Regatta
The River City City Rowing Rowing Club in Sacramento is organizing a new regatta. Dubbed the Rite of Spring Regatta, it is a unique format for Masters Novice sweep rowers: Women’s 8s and Men’s 4s will race a 6,000-meter head race Saturday, March 20, and then a 2000 meter sprint on Sunday, March 21, winners to be determined by combining the results of the two races. Only first- and second-year novice masters are allowed in the boats, and the crews must be the same for the two races. This is the first regatta we are aware of that focuses exclusively on novice masters. We are hoping to field a women’s 8 and a men’s 4 for the regatta. See more info here.

• Rowing "Exchange" with North Bay Rowing Club
With Jenny Antons’ help, we began efforts to reach out to other clubs with novice programs. Initially the intent was to “borrow” rowers for the Rite of Spring Regatta and, indeed, it looks like that will happen. The ancillary benefit is that we are getting friendly with other clubs and sharing resources for Masters Novice programs. Recently, 2 rowers from the North Bay Rowing Club in Petaluma traveled down and rowed with us. On a recent weekend, 6 of our rowers and our 2 coxswains traveled to Petaluma to row with NBRC. Their home water is the Petaluma River, a tidal estuary not unlike our sloughs but narrower and windier than our usual rowing course. Their members made us welcome and we had a good workout in two 8s on a gorgeous Sunday morning. The banks of the river were full of shore birds and we even saw a couple of swans! We enjoyed the “exchange” and hope to work out similar events with other novice programs.

• 2004 Practice Schedule
As of Feb. 1, we've officially started another year of Junior rowing at BIAC. Here's our practice schedule through next fall:
Spring (Feb-May): Mon, Tues, Wed 5:15am-7:00am; Thurs 4:30pm-6:30pm; Sat. 7am-10am.
Summer (June-Aug): Tues, Thurs 5:15am-7:00am;Sat 7am-10am.
Fall (Sept-Jan): Tues, Wed, Thurs 5:15am-7:00am; Sat 7am-10am

COMING EVENTS

GO BAIR!