Contents (click to jump directly to a section):

• Camp Goals
• Camp Format
  
• Post ID Camp Activities and Process
• Coaches and Staff
• About Bair Island Aquatic Center (BIAC)

We held our first camp on October 24-25, 2020. If you would like to be considered for our next ID camp, please fill out this form.

We are looking for agile athletes who want to push themselves, and ideally who know how to scull. Due to the nature of Beach Sprints and Coastal Rowing, participants must be comfortable in open and rough water and running in sand. Participants will be directly supervised by a coach at all times on the water.  The Camp will focus on Beach Sprint skills. Athletes will learn and practice the subtleties and thrills of rowing a coastal boat and the strategies for beach sprints racing, including beach starts, buoy turns, ‘surfing’ the waves and a race landing on the beach. Camp coaches have coastal racing and officiating experience and extensive histories of developing athletes for national and international competition.

Camp Goals

• Generate excitement about coastal rowing among youth rowers

• Develop beach sprint-specific race skills

• USA rank/assessment of each participant

• Practice beach sprint race format

• Facilitate partnering for 2Xs (note: this ID Camp will be in 1Xs only)

Coastal rowing and this camp supports the goals you have with your club or school rowing program. If your coach has questions about U19 Beach Sprints, your participation or would like to observe the camp, please contact Alice Henderson.

Camp Format (Tentative)

Week before camp

• One Hour Zoom Call - welcome and orientation
  

Saturday, October 24

• 9:00-9.30am – Drop off at Bair Island Aquatic Center (BIAC)
• 9:30-11:45am – Technical row
• Noon-2:00pm – Lunch and lecture how to how to manage a C1x, how to enter/exit with speed, importance of a boat holder
• 2:00-3:30pm – Relax at boathouse, socialize or do homework (outside while physically distancing) 
• 3:30-6:00pm – Power work, focusing on buoy turns 
• 6:00pm – Wrap-up meeting
• Dinner on your own

Sunday, October 25

• 8:30-9:00am – Arrive, stretch and review 
• 9:00-11:30am – Beach landing - How to catch and ride a wave
• 11:45-1:00pm – Lunch and lecture optimizing race strategy
• 1:00-1:30pm – Review Race rules and assign race flights/boat
• 1.30-2.30pm – Finalize plans with your boat handlers 
• 2.30-5:00pm – Meet to warm up for Beach Sprint Races in C1xs (Racing to be officiated by FISA licensed umpires)
• 5:00pm – Camp ends, flights from SFO or SJC 6:30pm or later

Housing

Families must arrange their own housing and transportation. Due to the pandemic, rowers from outside BIAC’s commute area who need lodging should plan to use this nearby hotel (an easy 10 minute run to the boathouse). The rower must stay with an adult who accompanies them.

Camp Fees

$350 per rower, excluding transportation, housing and some meals. Includes lunch both days and healthy snacks; Camp T-shirt; use of all equipment, including boats and oars.

Post Camp Activities and Process

Camp athletes who perform well will be invited to mini-camps throughout the year and the training selection camp in the summer of 2021. The top athletes will be coached and prepared for the 2021 USRowing Trials for Beach Sprints for the right to represent the United States as the first Senior or U19 competitors.

World Rowing Beach Sprints – September 24-26  2021 - Oeiras, Portugal (outside of Lisbon)

Events Offered:

Men: CM1x ¦ CJM1x ¦ CJM2x

Women: CW1x ¦ CJW1x ¦ CJW2x

Mixed: CMix2x ¦ CMix4x ¦ CJMix2x

(C is for coastal boat; J is for Junior/U19)

Coaches and Staff

Beth Anderson 

Beth is Executive Director of Norcal Crew. Beth joined Norcal in 2019 after 21 years as the Program Director and Coach at the Oakland Strokes rowing program, one of the premier Jr. Rowing Clubs. Under her leadership, Oakland Strokes won 19 US Rowing National Championships. In 2018-19, Beth was the Director of Junior Rowing at the Newport Aquatic Center. Beth graduated from UCLA in 1986 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in History and obtained a Master’s Degree in Sports Management from Purdue University in 1991. She was the Varsity Women’s Rowing Coach at the University of California at Davis from 1991 to 1993.

Bob Ernst

Bob is one of the USA’s most accomplished rowing coaches. He served as both the men's and women's rowing coach at the University of Washington during a 42-year association with the school. He was a four-time coach of U.S. Olympic women's rowing teams, from 1976 to 1988. He led the women's double in 1976, women's sculls in 1980, and the women's eight in both 1984 and 1988. His 1980 team did not compete in the Olympics due to the 1980 Summer Olympics boycott, while the 1984 team won the gold medal.

Ernst was an eleven-time Pacific-10 Conference Coach of the Year, Women's Coach of the Year in 1987 and Men's Coach of the Year in 1990–1993, 1995–1997, 2003, 2004, and 2007. He was inducted into UC Irvine's athletic Hall of Fame in 1984,  the National Rowing Foundation Hall of Fame in 1994,  and the Collegiate Rowing Coaches Association (CRCA) Hall of Fame in 2015.

Alice Henderson

Alice rowed for the University of Washington and TeamUSA, followed by a successful career as a high school and collegiate head coach at Seattle University from 1989 to 1994. As a FISA umpire Alice learned about Coastal rowing in 2013 and has promoted Beach Sprints and Coastal rowing on the West Coast of the USA ever since. She was a member of the 2018 World Championship Coastal Jury in Canada. In addition to her interest in Coastal rowing, she has been active in Paralympic rowing - In 2019 at the World Championships Alice’s PR2 2x boat qualified for the Tokyo2020 games. 

Hannah Wayment-Steele

Hannah, rowing for BIAC, placed an impressive 9th in the WC1x and 7th in the WC2x  at the FISA Coastal World Championships in 2019 in Hong Kong. Hannah will host a break out session on how to go from competitive sculler to elite coastal rower. She played DIII volleyball in college in southern California, blissfully unaware of oars or ergs, and only got hooked on rowing after college in 2016 while studying in the UK. When she isn’t at the boathouse Hannah is working on her PhD in Chemistry at Stanford. 

About Bair Island Aquatic Center (BIAC)

BIAC has participated in the two most recent World Rowing Coastal Championships and has coaches and volunteers to facilitate the important task of boatholding.

BIAC has two brand-new elite coastal singles that everyone will try and a fleet of open water boats.