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.

IN THIS ISSUE

PADDLING NEWS

  • 2003-04 WaveChaser Paddler Series a Huge Success

ROWING NEWS

COMING EVENTS

PADDLING NEWS

The second annual winter WaveChaser Paddle Series of over. It was a huge success. Eight races were held in various parts of the Bay Area. There were around 100 entrants in each race…a large increase compared to last year’s series. The Series is for one and two person outrigger canoes, kayaks, and surfskis. (The six person outrigger canoes are usually only raced during the summer.) The WaveChaser Series is the USA manland’s biggest race series for these types of canoe/kayaks. In addition to the attendance of northern California paddlers, this year’s series attracted many of the top racers in southern California. The 2-day race in February even attracted a top racer all the way from Wisconsin.

Plans are underway for the first ever Summer WaveChaser Series, so stay tuned.

The WaveChaser Series is run by the paddlers of BIAC. For more info, go to http://www.wavechaser.com. - Dave Jensen

Congratulations to the Master Men's team that participated in San Diego on the weekend of June 22-23. They placed a respectable sixth overall and won the Master's Division in the 2004 Ironman Championships!

Racing in an older "Bradley" canoe, they finished with the top Open Spec boats and were ahead of the next Master Men's team by over a minute. The crew consisted of Mike Ng, Dave Jensen, Tony Van Burren, Alan Clarke, Chris Cornejo, and Jon Ortiz. The course was 12 miles and conditions were somewhat flat, with swells of 2-3 feet.

We also took down another crew and they finished towards the middle of the pack, roughly 28th out of 60 canoes. The Open Spec crew consisted of Brett Hall, Eric Nyguen, Virgil Vidal, Joshua O'Conner, Daniel Czech, and David Meguar.

Congratulations again to both crews.  - Mike Martinez

ROWING NEWS

The A.M. Novice/Intermediate Masters rowing group took the lead in providing a rowing introduction to the BIAC community on National Learn to Row Day, held this year on June 12. Fifteen potential new rowers received instruction on the ergs. They also had a chance to row in an 8+ and to get a land introduction to sculling.

A cross-section of ages (from one 13-year-old to Dan Alexander’s 88-year old father) and athletic training (from a multi-marathoner to folks who hadn’t done much lately) were represented. All seemed interested and to have a good time. The wind started to kick up at about noon, so we were happy to have all the new rowers back on the dock after their sessions on the water. We hope the project yields at least a couple of new rowers in each novice/intermediate program.

NLTRD was sponsored by US Rowing, Concept 2 and the Craftsbury Sculling Center. Those organizations helped with marketing and advertising tools and a one-day event insurance policy.

The A.M. group thanks Marsha King and the P.M. Novice/Intermediate rowers and coxes for their help, as well as Chuck Dewey, Peter Allen and the ever-ready Jenny Antons.

- Dan Alexander

  • Rite of Spring

This past March 20-21, the a.m. Novice Masters, a.k.a Salty Dogs, kicked off their racing season in Sacramento at the Rite of Spring Regatta, subtitled the "First Annual Masters Novice Championships," hosted by the River City Rowing Club. The event was held in the Port of Sacramento using the docking facilities of the River City club and the U.C. Davis crew. The two-part regatta consisted of a 6,000-meter head race and a 2,000-meter sprint. Boats were handicapped by average age and categorized by experience into first-year and second-year rowers. Crews and coxswains were required to be identical in the two races, as the overall winner was to be determined by the average 500-meter split, after handicaps, for the combined races.

The racing was limited to women’s 8s and men’s 4s, and BIAC was represented by one crew in each first-year category. Other clubs competing at the regatta included River City, Ashland, OR, Tempe, AZ, and San Diego. In the Saturday head race, the BIAC women took a solid third place among the first-year boats. The men raced to a second-place finish among the first-years. That evening, River City hosted a tasty lasagna dinner followed by a talk and slide show by rowing historian and former Harvard oarsman Tom Weil from Texas.

Sunday’s sprints featured staggered starts based on handicap. With a 14-second age handicap over the younger River City crew that had beaten them in the head race, the BIAC men’s boat took off like rabbits, then had to fend off that younger and considerably larger crew from River City. Fend them off they did, winning the sprint and taking second overall among the first-year novices. The boat was stroked by Jef Vivian, followed by Andy Cordes, Bruce Roberts (on loan from Los Gatos Rowing Club) and Dan Alexander, with cox Terri McGann borrowed from River City.

The BIAC women took 4th in the sprint race, perhaps distracted by the pickup truck full of BIAC men hooting and hollering as they followed the women’s race along the levy. The women maintained third place overall among the first-year novices, with stroke Cheryl Elliott followed by Sara McIntosh, Pamela Ross, Christy Wyatt (from Los Gatos Rowing Club), Karen Shepardson (from North Bay Rowing Club), Yvonne French, Crystina Santos and Nicole Collins, coxed by Min Tang.

Team spokesperson Pamela Ross said, “The team will continue to work with coach JP Sekulich to improve their performance throughout the racing season. Those rowers who will still qualify as second-year novices next year look forward to returning to the Rite of Spring Regatta for a grudge match."

Arthur Ericsson of River City deserves credit for establishing this unique masters novice event. We look forward to sending an even larger fleet of masters novices to next year's Rite of Spring. - Dan Alexander

Women C: Rich Tzeng, 8: Kristin Henny, 7: Ginel Hill, 6: Tyler Morse, 5: Karen Osman, 4: Karna Nisewaner, 3: Jenny Antons, 2: Victoria Szabo, 1: Bethanie Bayha

Congratulations are also due to Cassandra Cunningham, coach of Serra High School, who competed in the "Lookout" boat (ex-US Nationals rowers), which took first place in the Women's Open Grand Final!

This year's SDCC marked a great start to the sprint season for the advanced sweep crews, and certainly put BIAC on the map.   - Fiona Ashley

The "COTIVEL" regatta, held annually in La Punta, Peru (just outside Lima), is a 500-meter sprint event for singles . This past April 2-4, BIAC was there, represented by Ian Cox, Cliff Widman, and Luis Yanez.

There were about 88 single-scull participants representing rowing clubs from Ecuador, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Uruguay, USA, and of course Peru.

BIAC's Ian Cox made it to the semifinals in the lightweight category, but lost to Victor Aspillaga, a 17-year-old sculler from Club de Regatas Lima. Victor had won the Canadian Henley in the lightweight category last year. Cliff Widman won a fourth-place medal in the masters D category finals. Luis Yanez made it to the finals in masters category B, C, and D, winning second-place medals in B and D, and a third-place medal in category C. Luis was the only rower in the tournament to get three medals in the final count.

In the team tally, out of 14 clubs representing six different countries, first place was Club de Regatas Lima from Peru with 18 medals. In second place was Club Universitario de Regatas from Peru with 12 medals. Third place was Stadio Atletico Italiano from Chile with 4 medals. And in fourth place was BIAC from the USA with 4 medals! This is an especially good final standing, considering that BIAC was represented by only three rowers, and some countries had as many as 20 rowers, such as Ecuador, which came in 5th place after BIAC.

This is the first year that BIAC has entered the COTIVEL Regatta, but we have been invited to return next year. In the meantime, Luis is returning to Peru this summer to compete in the National Masters Championships on July 18th. Good luck, Luis!
- Reported by Luis Yanez

For the first time in recent memory, BIAC sent a men's open 8+ to the Pacific Coast Rowing Championships, held at Lake Natoma on May 15 (the day before the Pac 10 championships). Well, it was mostly a BIAC boat -- six members of the advanced sweep team (cox Erika Takada, plus Jordan Fong, Matt Sullivant, Gabe Gunderson, Bryan Hoffman, and Craig Canine) were joined by two rowers from Stanford.

But here's the best part: the BIAC boat came in 2nd (a length behind Oregon) in the 2,000 meter sprint with a time of 6:31.5. Left behind in BIAC's mighty wake were Sacramento State, Washington State, Humboldt State, and the Jedi Knights. Sweet!

On May 23, some 35 BIAC athletes competed in more than 20 races in this year's Gold Rush Masters Regatta at Lake Natoma. Although there were several close 4ths and a few nobly fought 5ths and 7ths (but somehow, no 6th-place finishes), BIAC rowers brought home 12 medals, as summarized below:

On June 18-20, the women's advanced sweep team made a fine showing in Vancouver, Washington, at USRowing's Northwest Regional Masters Championships. Eight rowers and two coxswains competed as an 8+ and also as two 4+s. Crew member and Bair Island News correspondent Victoria Szabo filed this report:

We came in 5th in the finals for the 8+ (yay!). The competition was pretty stiff, including Lake Washington, Pocock Rowing Club (2 boats), Lake Union, and Willamette Rowing Club (whom we beat). Most teams had multiple boats, so we considered just getting to the finals a great achievement. "We" were Kristin Henny, Alison Greene, Victoria Szabo, Ginel Hill, Molly Newman, Jenny Antons, Fiona Ashley, Bethanie Bayha, with Min Tang as the 8+ cox, and Min and Tad Egami as the 4s coxes. (Alas, neither of our 4s made it to the finals).

After various arrangements for trailering our own boats fell through at the last minute, we were very graciously loaned boats by Marin Rowing Club and Conibear Rowing Club of Seattle.

The weather during the regatta went to extremes: The first day's rowing was significantly delayed by thunder and lightning, and the second by winds so high they swamped boats, a few so thoroughly that twenty people had to struggle to pull them from the water. Nonetheless, all scheduled races were completed on both days. And Vancouver is a beautiful place to row.

We also had some R&R in nearby Portland, Oregon. One night we celebrated Fiona's birthday at a Moroccan restaurant called Marrakesh. Have you seen the picture of Tad with the belly dancer? Check it out!

BIAC Jr. Crew finished its second year in May at the Southwest Regional Junior State Championships. While we didn't bring home any medals this year, all of our crews turned in excellent performances. We are still in the building stage and are very proud of our athletes and what they have accomplished.

In May, Mike Still, head coach of Silicon Valley Crew, and I decided that it's in the best interest of both of our programs to join forces and create a new powerhouse on the Peninsula. Our programs complement each other nicely, and we feel confident that we are taking an important step forward in creating the future of junior rowing in our area. Our new team is called Northern California Rowing Club, or Nor-Cal Crew for short.

The summer season has kicked off with a bang and we are constantly looking for new members to join us. Please contact me at ally@biacjuniorcrew.com or Mike at svcrew@sbcglobal.net.

Special thanks to all of the Masters rowers (both sweep and sculling) that have helped support our juniors over the past couple years through our various fundraising activities! We appreciate your support more than you know!    - Coach Ally Bocchieri

COMING EVENTS

GO BAIR!