News & updates

Fall rowing is here and it is beautiful.  It is dark though, and we all need to take extra safety precautions.

Using bow and stern lights before sunrise and after sunset is an important precaution we all take to help ensure safety on the water.   Fall mornings are dark and our waterway is busy.  Most active teams and other recreational and non-recreational watercraft use light and are required to do so by navigation laws.  Every year BIAC purchases a very large number of RowKraft Beacon lights for early morning team practices and some individual member use.  We can’t buy enough for everyone so we do encourage private boat owners and active single scullers to purchase their own lights.

The RowKraft lights are bright and hold a battery charge for many hours.  They are fantastic, but do need care. Their interior electrical components need to stay completely dry.  When using these lights please affix their lids (that includes a rubber gasket) tightly before leaving the boathouse and post row wipe excess exterior water from the cups before removing the lids, and putting away to be charged.

Thirty six BIAC members traveled to West Sacramento to complete at the annual Head of the Port Regatta.  The regatta is a mainstay in BIAC’s fall racing calendar and serves as a tune up for crews getting ready to race at the Head of the Charles Regatta.  The regatta also serves as a great event for those just looking for their first rowing event and to challenge themselves with their teammates.

Aisha Chow defended her singles win and retained the women's fastest single trophy.  The BIAC women’s masters eight of Natalia Arasa Bonavila, Nadia Cooper. Alyssa Meyer, Erin Reinhardt, Sveta Gurenkova, Iska Saric, Ashley Peterson, Andrea Valladao, M. Dietz (Cox) also bested a field of 9 to win the women’s masters eight event and also retain the women’s fast eight trophy.  Also in the women’s master eight field the lineup of Amanda Hawkins, Abbey Blake, Jana Comstock, Athena Bradley, Sharon Wienbar, Laura Lind, Angie Tinson, Amy Cai, Eilee Cheng (Cox) took second place.  Way to go BIAC women (women’s eight pictured above).

Rounding out the top BIAC women’s finishes included the Open women’s quad crew of Libby Lungren, Liz Wang, Grace Chen, and Chris Gil who took first place.

Other BIAC results include:

Women’s Masters 1x, Sophia Gee, 5th place

Men’s Open Par, Liam Duffy, Ian Whiton, 1st place

Men’s Masters 4+, Rob Meyer, Jon Li, Jason Stinson, Marty Udisches, Eileen Cheng, 3rd place

Women’s Masters 2x, Diane Jacobson, Sherry Lin

BIAC was one of hundreds of sites throughout the state participating in the September 19 Coastal Clean-up event. 2026 marks BIAC's 8th consecutive year organizing and hosting the cleanup.

This year (46) BIAC volunteers inventoried and removed debris from the mudflats, shorelines and waterways surrounding BIAC.  2026 volunteer turnout was the second highest only to be surpassed in 2024 with (47) volunteers. The California coastal clean-up is one of BIAC's largest volunteer events. Thanks to everyone who made this year's clean-up another wonderful success.

Below are the 2021-2026 final stats for BIAC.  From the stats, one conclusion is as BIAC continues to clean surrounding areas, the debris inventoried and collected is increasingly insidious smaller plastic and foam waste. Large debris items such as boat engines were removed during earlier clean ups.

	Total lbs. debris removed by BIAC Volunteers	Total No. pieces removed by BIAC volunteers
2026	885	6,519
2025	1,165	7,823
2024	2,037	8,215
2023	1,546	7,905
2022	1,311	7,047
2021	2,178	10,323

Thank you to the 35+ BIAC members who pitched in at the club's first major volunteer event of the new year on Jan. 27. We moved and reconfigured two boat racks, cleaned our classroom modulars, deep-cleaned our new restroom modular units, painted oars, disposed of old debris from the BIAC yard, removed carpet from the upper level of the boathouse, and removed the old lockers from the upper level of the boathouse (phase I of the boathouse improvement project). 

On December 10, we had 46 shells, including 9 paddlers, enter and finish the Corkscrew Regatta with a total of 99 seats. Eight of the shells made the 8.5 mile corkscrew in under an hour. Two of the surfskis made an impressive time of 1hr 8min.

Results and photos are posted on the Corkscrew page.

The Corkscrew Regatta is above all a fundraiser for Second Harvest Food Bank of Silicon Valley. This year we raised almost $2,000 from entry fees! In addition, two generous donors added another $3,500 in support of the Corkscrew Regatta. Our total contribution was $5,496 to Second Harvest!!

The BIAC costume contest has no rules and no description and we had a number of really good entries. The winner of the 2023 costume contest is the Can’t Touch This (Quad) of M&M’s. The icing on the cake was the Coffee Cake entry into the potluck by Amanda, one of the M&Ms. (Better food yields results!) Runner-up was the Norcal 2x bowed by Toby Sin. Other notable costume entries: The Wonder Women of BIAC (with a GREAT time of under 54 minutes), the two Marin 8’s with Candy Cane and Corkscrew Hats, and who can forget Steve with the Banana Boat? Banantlers?

Fall rowing and paddling on the Port of Redwood City and out of BIAC could not be more active. With all this activity, we have greater risks. Early mornings are dark, air and water temperatures are cooler, and more boats are on the water getting ready to race.

All boats launching from BIAC before sunrise must have bow and stern lights. BIAC members are also strongly encouraged to wear bright, high-visibility clothing. And all BIAC rowing traffic should follow the rules of navigation and traffic pattern maps we have posted at the boathouse and on our website HERE. Please note that this is the rowing-specific traffic pattern and that we have specific guidelines for all high-traffic areas, including the Port Turning Basin/Paly Cove, Smith Slough, Westpoint Slough, and the BIAC docks.

Whether it's helping out with one of our massive club clean-up days or pitching in with an odd job here or there, BIAC member volunteer contributions to the club are numerous and valuable beyond measure.

Some of you might have noticed that our deck has had a few problems and that the railing leans a bit. Peter Allen and Jerry Pierce replaced, repaired, and shored up the boards on the land side and Greg Wilson reinforced the railing. They pulled up several deck boards, installed blocking between the floor joists, and then reinstalled the deck boards. Serious carpentry work. The work isn't finished, but a huge thank-you to volunteers for working to ensure that our yard is both safe and more attractive.

Our BIAC Fall Fundraising campaign concluded and our members were extremely giving! 56% of our membership donated in various amounts totaling $33,130! One generous donor offered a matching challenge, bringing the total up to an impressive ~$65,000+ for new equipment and boathouse improvements. Nine members also won raffle prizes offered by our members, but we're all winners when we're using new equipment and enjoying a spruced-up boathouse. THANK YOU for taking part. Special thanks also to Tracy Wilk for organizing the fundraiser and all its moving parts.

BIAC's participation in Santa Clara Valley Med’s Accessibility Day on Saturday, Sept. 30, in San Jose was a success! We got to talk to many people and to introduce adaptive rowing to whoever would listen . . . We even got some brave people onto the ergs.

BIAC was one of hundreds of sites hosting a California Coastal Cleanup event on Sept. 23. This year marks BIAC's 5th consecutive year in participating in this state-wide event. 39 BIAC volunteers participated and in just 2.5 hours they inventoried and removed 1,546 lbs of debris from the mudflats, shorelines, and waterways surrounding BIAC. BIAC volunteers removed 1,300 lbs in 2022; 2,178 lbs in 2021. The California Coastal Cleanup is BIAC's single largest volunteer event. Thanks to everyone who made this year's cleanup another wonderful success. Click here for some history and stats on the California Coastal Cleanup.