..history..

varsity men's lightweight 8+ (1992-1993)
by Jeff Woodard

September 1992 found the lightweight men full of both hope and uncertainty.  The uncertainty hinged on the results of last spring's lightweight eight.  They had finished dead last in their heat at the regional championships.  Hope flourished because of the success of the lightweight fours at regionals.  Both the varsity and novice lightweight fours had won SIRAs convincingly and we hoped to build on that success in the new season.  In addition, GT Crew was the proud owner of a brand new, top of the line Vespoli 8 and a set of new "hatchet" style oars.  It was the first new 8 Tech had ever gotten.  Jim Wilson, president at the time, had lobbied hard in the halls of student government to fund the new boat.  Christened "The Sting", the new boat proved to be light, stiff and fast!  Not wanting to be outclassed by all the flashy cars in Atlanta, we put a fake cell phone antenna on the stern deck and our new boat was ready for action.

There were twelve lightweights coming into the fall season.  However, it became rapidly clear who would make up the eight.  Heather Shand was the coxswain and left no misunderstanding that she felt that this was a team of nine.  She did all of our workouts with us and drove our boat exclusively.  She had a light touch on the rudder, was extremely aggressive and would talk to us, instead of yelling at us, as we went down the course.  If Heather was yelling, it was at the competition.  Chad Markle was our stroke and rowed like a metronome.  He would nail ratings targets and had the strength and endurance to lead the boat in all situations.  I rowed right behind Chad in the 7 seat.  Chad and I were a yin and yang of sorts.  I was constantly pushing to bring the rating up, Chad working to keep me from going out too fast.  We had a deal; if he got us into the last 500 meters near the front and I would bring us home.  Chris Betz, Chris Vail, Oliver Weber and Jim Melchoirs made up the "engine room" and provided the main source of power for the boat.  Whenever Heather called for 10's or rating shifts, these guys were the reason Chad and I could stick it.  Eric Johnson and Joel Peters rode up front.  The bowmen have the biggest impact on the balance of the boat and the smallest flaws in technique by these two will be felt by the entire boat.  These guy's consistent technique gave us a stable platform to work from.  Our coach for the year was Victoria Mixon.  She had just moved to Atlanta after graduating from MIT and volunteered for the job to stay in touch with the rowing community.  Vicki brought some new perspectives to the team and had the demeanor to deal with our boat's somewhat obnoxious attitude.  I would say that during those nine months, I looked at these people more like my family than my boat.  Most mornings, they were the first people I saw after waking up and a lot of nights, the last people I saw before bed. 

Our first race of the fall was in Jacksonville, Florida.  As is typical for smaller races, they did not have a lightweight eight event and we were to race the open race.  The open race was the last one of the day, scheduled for late in the afternoon and we had plenty of time to kill before our race.  We rigged up The Sting, went over all the settings with a fine tooth comb, then did it again to bleed some anxious energy.  As the day wore on, we got tired of tinkering with the boat and fired up a touch football game in the parking lot.  Fun was had by all until Chris "Hands of Stone" Betz got a little overzealous going after a pass, pulled a Superman and tore his hand up on the graveled pavement.  Needless to say, that put a quick end to the game.  We picked the gravel out of his hand, wrapped it in paper towels and duct tape and explained to him how stupid he was and that under no circumstances was this an excuse not to pull.  By the time we got Betz sorted, it was time to launch for the race.

The course in Jacksonville was one of the most fun I've rowed on.  It starts out on the St. John's River, a major seaway full of merchant and military traffic, before turning onto a tributary.  It is quite daunting to look up from your 18" wide shell at a large container ship.  We had three boats entered in the race.  Since we liked to pass people, we chose to take the last of our slots, putting us second to last in the start order.  The boat following us was "The Sons of the Beach", a masters boat from South Florida with a reputation of being fast.  We queued up, set our spacing and were off with the Sons in distant chase.  Through the first half of the course, we closed the distance to the first boat.  Unfortunately, we had to ease up a bit to follow the boat through two bridges.  Once clear of the bridges, we put the hammer down.  About 600 meters from the finish, the course made a hard right turn.  After we cleared the bridge, Heather set us up on the left and swept into the corner.  Coming through, we passed four boats simultaneously, including both of the other Tech boats and made our run to the finish. 

Our final count was 6 boats passed on the course and a narrow victory over the Sons of the Beach.  When they found out that they had lost to Georgia Tech, they were shocked.  For one thing, they had passed two Georgia Tech boats on the course.  Unfortunately for  them, three were entered.  In addition, they weren't too pleased about getting spanked by a bunch of scrawny lightweights.  Well that would be something the heavies would have to get used to.  Back in Atlanta, somebody stole into the boathouse and put a "Buzz" sticker on the gunwale at the coxswain's seat.  From here on out, a "Buzz" was put on the gunwale for every victory.

The Head of the Chattahoochee was our next race.  Held on our home water, this was the focus for our fall season and the largest fall race in the Southeast.  The Florida Institute of Technology, a varsity program from Melbourne, was the defending champion in the lightweight 8 and heavily favored to repeat.  Based on our poor showings in previous years, we were seeded deep in the race and would start well back in the pack.  We felt like this was a good thing, fitting well with our mantra of "Catch 'em, Pass 'em, Gas 'em, Leave 'em".  In our huddle before the race, we called for passing five boats to win the race, then launched to head down to the start.

Coming through the start gate, Heather had us almost right on the boat ahead of us and was all over us to reel in the first boat.  We were rowing well at a 28, closed the gap rapidly and pulled through in the first third of the race.  The second third of the course is a long, sweeping right turn.  Going wide through this turn can be devastating to a crew's chance at victory.  Heather took us way inside, putting our blades in the mud, sliding our bows just inside the boats ahead of us and forcing them outside to clear our path.  Coming into the final straightaway, we were towing four boats up the river.  We picked it up to a 32 and it was like we were shot out of a cannon.  In the last 500 meters we opened at least four boatlengths on everyone.  Our tally in Atlanta: five boats passed, a 35 second victory over FIT, Tech Crew's first 'Hooch victory and a second "Buzz" for the gunwale.

Our last race of the fall season was a little bit different than most.  The Augusta Rowing Club was putting on their first head race and because of the strong current on the Savannah River, decided to have what they dubbed a "U-turn" regatta.  Instead of paddling down to the start and racing back, this race would go upriver a mile and a half, rip a 180 degree corner in the middle of the river and race back down.  Interesting concept for a sixty foot boat with a rudder the size of a business card.

Our boat had a rule, "Train like you plan to race", and it was no different for the u-turn.  Before a practice, we hatched a plan for how we could turn an eight around in the width of a river at full pressure.  We decided that the best way to accomplish this was to have one side of the boat put on the brakes by holding water while the other side yanked as hard as they could.  If we needed the extra turning force, Heather was to put her body in the water and try to use it like a rudder.  The first time we tried it, all of us on the port side damn near knocked ourselves out of the boat when the oar handles came flying back.  We decided that a little less aggressive "hold water" was in order and soon we were tearing corners like an F1 car.  Well maybe not quite that well, but it was in the width of the 'Hooch.

Spinning around the upriver side of the island one time, we heard this nasty screech from under the boat.  We stopped the boat, checked the bilges for water, found none and finished up our practice.  We made a horrifying discovery while wiping the boat down after practice.  The screech was caused by a submerged stake that had slit the belly of The Sting for over a third of it's length.  The Sting was out for the season and would have to pay a visit to the Vespoli factory to go under the knife.  It was pretty sickening to see our boat down for the count.

We ended up racing Augusta in the Long John, a good boat, but not nearly as fast as our baby.  Again, there was no lightweight race, so we entered multiple boats in the open event.  For this race, we chose the first slot, thinking that we didn't want to get piled up behind a lot of crews trying to make the corner.  Our plan was to stay low on the rating going upriver, tear the corner and take a power 20 to bring the rating up to a 32 for the remainder of the race.  Through the first part of the race, the Clemson boat was holding right off our stern and had us  a bit concerned, but the concern was unfounded.  Heather noticed that the corner was a lot wider than what we had practiced and filled us in on the new plan.  We tore through the corner, garnering applause from the referees, and opened up a huge gap on Clemson.  Heather called the 20 to bring up the rating and we cruised home for our third victory in three tries.  No "Buzz" though; The Sting had sat this one out.

After salvaging our grades through the end of the quarter and enjoying some holiday time with our families, it was time to start doing the serious training associated with head to head sprint racing.  Our typical workout schedule was focused on putting miles under the keel with the goal of building endurance, swing, power and, of course, pain threshold.  To avoid equipment conflicts, we got our water workouts in between 5 and 7 am every weekday except Monday and two weekend rows at more civilized times.  Throw in classes, studying and three afternoon practices a week that involved running, weightlifting or spending time on the erg and you've got a full week.  Once spring racing season started, there were only a couple of changes to the schedule; we had to de-rig and load the boat after practice Friday morning, race on Saturday and re-rig before practice on Sunday.

Each year, the crew spends their spring break down in Panama City for a week of intensive training before the beginning of the spring season.  Of course, there were a lot of other things aside from training going on in Panama City as well.  Each day, we got in a fitness row in the morning, made a beach run around lunch time and finished up the day with a technique row in the late evening.  The winter workouts had clearly developed our fitness and were swinging well together, but boat set, that rock solid balance of the boat, continued to elude us. 

For one of our technique sessions, Vicki had us rowing on the square with two people out to hold the boat set.  These types of workouts are just plain boring.monotony and repetition.just boring.  For the whole practice, the only thing we heard about from Heather in the backseat and Vicki in the launch was timing at the finish.  Finish together, everybody out clean at the finish, finish timing, finish timing, finish timing.  I just wanted some dinner.  On the way back home, Vicki had us bring in the bow pair to row all eight on the square.  Everyone in boat braced for what would surely be a very painful experience.  How wrong we were.  Eric and Joel came in, nailed the timing at the catch and the boat set up like it had pontoons.  Finally, we had put all of the pieces together. 

For the rest of the week, we learned how to trust the set and spend the recovery concentrating on how hard we were going to destroy the catch.  To emphasize the finish timing, we started feathering the blades hard at the finish, making a very loud, authoritative "thunk" at the end of every stroke.  For the rest of the season, any time the boat would get lax on concentration, Vail or Heather would call for "the thunk" and we'd pull it back together.  On the way down to the starting line, we liked to row at a really low rating with the boat set and nailing the finishes really loud.  Most the time, it would silence the folks on the shore.  Talk about intimidation.

We headed to Augusta for our first race straight from Panama City.  The Tech alumni in Augusta had been bitten by the rowing bug and were making a terrific showing for the race.  These guys had gone out on the river one night and painted a huge GT on a bridge embuckment.  The image of these 40+ men sneaking around on the river at night just cracks me up.  In addition, we all crashed in alumni houses that night and were treated to a great spread of snacks at the race course.  It was great to have that sort of support for a race.

Quite a few northeastern schools take spring training at Augusta and the invitational is usually a display of Ivy League speed.  Vicki decided to enter us in the Open Dad Vail race instead of the lightweight race.  She figured we didn't need to see the big boys yet.  We got a pretty clean start and chased Jacksonville's boat down the course to finish second.  Not the result we were looking for, but something to grow from.

The next weekend, our boat was excited about getting to display some speed on our home water at the Atlanta Rowing Festival.  We were really looking forward to making a big contribution toward the overall team trophy by rowing both the lightweight and open 8 races, as well as breaking the boat to cover the open and lightweight 4 races.  We all arrived at the race course early to weigh in after skipping dinner and in some cases, running to drop a few pounds.  After weigh-ins, we found out that everyone had scratched from the lightweight 8 race and that our head coach wasn't going to let us row the 4's even though it would substantially increase the team's chances of winning the overall trophy.  We tried to get anyone to race in the lightweight 8 by offering a boat, oars and entry fee to anyone who'd show up.  Nobody took the offer, including Augusta College, who had two lightweight 4's entered.  We were furious and spent the whole day stewing about it.

By race time for the open 8, we were all pretty hot from the day's events.  In our huddle, we decided to row the 2000 meter course in under 6 minutes.  There was a buoy at what we thought was the halfway point.  At the buoy, Heather was to check our elapsed time on course and decide what to do from there.  On the water, we lined up against the Clemson 8 and Tech's open 8.  We had convinced the Technique, the student newspaper, to do an article on the team and had managed to place a photographer on the judge's boat following our race.  The flag dropped and within the first twenty strokes, we had pulled open water on both boats.  The judges launch wouldn't follow us for fear of waking the other two boats, so no pictures of us.  At the buoy, we had been racing for well over three minutes and Heather uttered four of my favorite words, "Let's take it up!".  We kicked it into gear and finished the race at well over 40 strokes per minute.elapsed time, 5:42.  It turns out that the buoy was almost three quarters of the way down the course and we were moving well to begin with.  Kicking it at the end was just icing on the cake.  Tally showed one more "Buzz" for the boat and a picture of the Open 8 for the Technique.

About the only interesting thing at the Clemson race was the wakes thrown up by bass boats being driven by guys in crash helmets.  During one of our races, we had a pair of boats pass us, one on each side, then both crossed in front of us.  Heather saw this and called, "Wake on starboard.wake on port.oh SHIT!"  The wake was easily a foot over each side of the boat and smacked Melchoirs in the back of the head.  Even so, we cruised to easy victories in both the open and lightweight 8 races and affixed two more bees to our baby.

A new race was planned for this season.  Called the Champion International Intercollegiate Regatta, it was an invitation only race and was to serve as a sort of Division II championship race.  Chad found the announcement.  We chatted about it and decided that if we won at regionals, we should go.  Chad brought this up at one of the officer's meeting and was rebuffed.  The head coach said, "We all know that the Women's Novice Lightweight 4 is our most competitive boat.  Why don't we pay to send them all over the country?"  Chad was livid.  We had lost only one race going all the way back to the fall season compared to a crew that had one two races during the spring.  He got home, walked into the living room and said to me, "I want to make SIRA look like Atlanta!"  I just looked at him in shock.  I'm supposed to be the excitable one, not Chad and here he was all fired up.  I stood up, grabbed him on the shoulders and told him there was only one response, win SIRA and qualify for the race.

Coming into the Southern Regional Championship (SIRA) race, we had a chip on our shoulders and something to prove.  Whether it was to ourselves or to the world was unclear, but a convincing win would take care of it either way.  We checked the heat and lane assignments as soon as we arrived in Oak Ridge on Friday night.  We found ourselves slated way outside in lane 6 based on results from the previous year and realized that we hadn't raced any of the other crews in our heat before.  This added a lot to our anxiety, led to a lot of nervous banter, even more quiet contemplation and, for me at least, a very restless night.

There is one good thing about being assigned an outside lane.  You only have to look to one side to keep an eye on the competition.  Of course, I would never look out of the boat during a race.  The way the course is set up, we were the last crew to get on the stake and sat ready for what seemed like an eternity while the starter polled the crews in preparation for the start.  I could feel a nervous tension in the boat that had never been there before.  A few of us were shaking, the rest focused on the starter waiting for the flag to drop.  It was finally time to find out if we really had some speed.  The flag went up, then down again.  Three quarters, half, half, three quarters full and on for 20, we left the line in frenzied rush of abbreviated strokes.  Just as we started to settle, a couple of boats in the middle of the course got tied up and the judges called us back for a restart.  I looked over at the other crews and realized that WE ALREADY HAD OPEN WATER ON THE FIELD!  The bowman of the second place crew was looking around with a satisfied look on his face.until he noticed us well in front of him.   He tapped his two-man on the shoulder and pointed at us.  When he saw us, he just dropped his head.  My only thought: "We own you!"  We got lined up for the second start, rowed the first half at race pace, then cruised the last half to qualify easily for the afternoon finals.

For the finals that afternoon, we lined up right in the middle of the action in lane 3.  The crew from Marietta college had won the other heat and were placed on our left side in lane 4.   Although there was some nervousness about the race, it was nothing like the heats.  We got on the stake, got set and made a clean start.  We settled in with about half a boat on both Marietta College and the University of Florida.  Over the first half of the course, we were able to open up a couple of more seats on Marietta and push Florida of our stern.  We made our big move near the halfway mark, and Marietta was still there.  What was this?  There wasn't supposed to be any boats close to us this far down the course!  At least that's what I think was the question being asked by the boat psyche.  Our boat set fell apart.  We were rowing like a bunch of freshmen.  It was ugly.  Fortunately, we managed to hold off Marietta at the finish with a display of will and take the win.  That day, we brought home GT Crew's first SIRA eights gold, put a "Buzz" on the boat, qualified for the Champion Regatta and added more fuel to our "confidence" fire.

After losing to us at SIRA, the University of Florida crew wanted to get another shot at us and invited us down to the FIRA Florida Championship regatta in Tampa.  We knew the Florida heat and humidity would be different than rowing in Atlanta in the springtime.  To acclimate ourselves a little, we decided to add some noon-time stadiums to our schedule.  I will tell you this: running stadiums in the middle of the day, after a two hour row in the morning, is grueling and not something I would recommend to my friends.  Robbie, the novice men's coach, managed to get us beds and a boat from the University of Tampa, so we piled into a couple of cars on Friday night and headed down I-75.

The race was unusual in that it was scheduled for a Sunday instead of Saturday.  It was a good thing too as the boat we were given needed some serious adjustments before we raced it.  She was an old sectional boat, one that was cut in half and bolted together for use.  She had been rowed in saltwater her entire life and all of the hardware on the riggers were seriously corroded.  After spending a couple of hours trying rig the boat, we managed to get the oarlocks pitched between ­2 and +6 degrees and spread within 2 cm of each other.  Not ideal after rowing a tightly set boat like The Sting, but it would have to do.

The free time on Saturday gave us a little time for mischief.  The University of Tampa plays host to quite a few northern schools that come down to train during their spring breaks.  One of the favorite pastimes is to "decorate" the seawalls around the boathouse with displays of school spirit.  Thinking that this would be a great way to spend a Saturday night in Tampa, we loaded up and headed to the Home Depot to acquire the necessary supplies.  While waiting for night to fall, we found that Yale left a launch at the boathouse for their spring training.  As a special gift to our friends from Connecticut, we decided to treat the launch to a new coat of bottom paint that looked strikingly similar to our blade design.  Once the sun had set and traffic died down on the river, we paddled across and painted a striking black and yellow mural on the seawall directly across from the boathouse.  Jacket faithful had now left two marks on the rivers.

We were scheduled for two races on Sunday, the lightweight and open eights.  The University of Miami men's eight was clearly the 800 lb. gorilla of southeastern rowing and we had come to Tampa with our sights set on them.  Our nonchalant attitude toward our lightweight competition almost cost us that race. 

We knew that both Florida crews would come out really high, settling into a base rate of 40 or higher.  Even so, at SIRAs, we took the start easily and then settled in at a 32 with a six seat gap on the field and expected to do the same here.  The announcer following the race made the call for the spectators near the finish line.  "At the 500 meter mark, it's bow ball, to bow ball, to bow ball.  UCF at a 42, Florida at a 40 and Georgia Tech making it look easy at a 32."  The tired, old sectional didn't have the pop off the line that we were accustomed to in The Sting and we found ourselves in the middle of a race.  We managed to open up about a half a boat on both crews through the middle 1000 meters and looked to hold that through the finish.  In our huddle, we'd decided that we wouldn't sprint for the finish to save ourselves for the open race and managed to take the win by a seat without really opening the throttle. 

The open race was a disaster.  There were 7 boats in the race and since we were the exhibition crew, we drew "Lane 0", which had a rock jetty extending across it 700 meters down the course.  Either we would have to get enough open water on the crew next to us to move over and clear the jetty or shut down and fall in behind them.  We didn't get the open water, finished the race near the end and were unable to avenge our earlier loss to Jacksonville or take down Miami.  No "Buzz", The Sting stayed home on this trip.

One of the side benefits of going to FIRAs was the feedback some of the coaches down there had for us.  They were all friends of Robbie's and were happy to give us some constructive criticism.  The basic message was build your base rate to 36 and lengthen out the front end of the stroke.  Once we got home, we started to do just that and learned the evil of three minute pieces.  During one of the practices, I was riding Chad pretty hard about the rating and length.  In between pieces, he turned around and yelled, "You're asking me to do the impossible!  You can't lengthen your stroke and bring up the rating at the same time!"  I just screamed back, "If we don't, we're going to get our ass kicked."   By the time we left for Vails, we had added six inches to the front end of our stroke  at a base rate of 36.

Our trip to Philadelphia for the Dad Vail Regatta started like any other.  Most of the crews loaded their boats after their Tuesday practice, but we wanted to get some starts and some short sprints in and loaded up after a short Wednesday morning practice.  In the afternoon, we picked up the van on campus, hooked up the trailer and headed out for Philadelphia.  Things started to get interesting once the sun went down.  We flipped on the lights and started blowing fuses.  Driving a rowing trailer down the interstate in the dark with no lights is a bad thing.  After blowing through a couple of boxes of fuses, we managed to set it up where we had headlights and hazard lights.  We were off, with the driver holding a flashlight in his mouth to see the dash and the following van close behind the trailer. 

At 3am Thursday morning, I was looking forward to finally getting some rest and pulled the trailer into a gas station somewhere in North Carolina.  I hopped out, took a restroom break, then crawled into the back seat of the van for a well deserved nap.  The next thing I knew, I was being carried out of the van like a suitcase.  Eric got me out of the van, stood me up in the parking lot and pointed up at the boats.  Two feet of The Sting's bow was dangling from the boat.  Chad had tried to knock down the Exxon sign with the boats.  He had severely underestimated the signpost.  I was in shock.  Was this the way the season was going to end?  We had found out in Tampa what it's like to row borrowed boats and none of us wanted to contemplate racing the "big one" in whatever we could scrounge up.  I sent Joel into the woods to get some sticks, rummaged some duct tape from the trailer and climbed up on top of the van to put a splint on the boat.  We piled back into the vans and set off again.

We finally arrived in Philadelphia late Thursday morning and sprung into action to repair the boat.  We had contacted Vespoli from the road and Dave Trond was ready to resurrect our baby.  We unloaded the hull, set it up under the eves of the Temple boat house and got to work.  We put in the new structure, then headed out on the river for our practice.  That row left a lot to be desired and added significantly to the anxiety I already felt about our chances in the race.  We spent the rest of the day and a good part of the night with some bondo, sandpaper and a hairdryer putting the finishing touches on the boat.  Friday morning, we had a little ceremony to have Dave sign the repair and "The Dave Trond Signature Model" Sting was ready for action.  We took to the water, again with a whole lot to prove, and cruised through our heat and semi-finals to qualify for the finals on Saturday.

The course at Vails is odd for a regatta of this caliber; it has a turn in it.  Start the race, under the Strawberry Mansion bridge, short right turn, past the Temple Boathouse, then pull past the island and the grandstand to the finish.  Based on our performance in the semi-finals, we were assigned lane 6 on the inside of the corner.  Although the distance through the corner is shorter, there is significantly more current on the outside of the turn, which tended to slingshot crews into the lead.  In our huddle, we discussed a few things.  Nobody expected us to make it out of the heats, nobody expected us to make the finals, nobody expected us to medal and nobody expected us to win.  We had nothing to lose and decided that we would not go down with out a fight.  When we passed Temple's boathouse, if we weren't in the race, we would start sprinting and let the chips fall where they may.

We started the race, came through the corner, passed the Temple boathouse and found ourselves firmly planted in fifth place, well out of the race.  We sprinted from 1200 meters out.  Now this wasn't a sprint like you do in practice where the rating builds as you go down the course.  No, this was a reckless abandon, wind it up and let it all hang out push to the finish line.  The only thing I remember from the rest of that race was FEELING, not hearing, but FEELING the impact from the cheering crowd at the grandstand.  It was amazing.  We managed to get back in the race, pulling through the Drexel boat in front of all their friends and getting edged by Georgetown by 0.6 seconds at the line to take the bronze, Georgia Tech's first Vails medal. 

The first thing I remembered after the race was Melchoirs squealing like a school girl.  "I love you guys!  I love you guys! I can't believe it.  We did it!"  And he was right.  As a club program, we had finished third behind Western Ontario, aka the Canadian National Team and Georgetown, a strong varsity program.  We pulled up to the medal dock to a rendition of "Ramblin' Wreck from Georgia Tech" being sung by the rest of the team.  It was almost surreal rowing along the seawall back up to the take out dock.  Our friends from the other crews were yelling congratulations.  The team was running along side us and all of the southern crews were cheering as we went past.  We had been working toward this day for 9 months, our mantra being "every mile you row, every meter you erg, every stair you climb, every mile you run brings you one step closer to success at the Vails."  Now as I rowed with my crew after the race, feeling the weight of that medal around my neck, I realized that effort had not been a waste and we weren't finished yet.

We were the only Tech boat that qualified to go up to Massachusetts for the Champion Regatta.  As such, we had to pay our own way to the race, including airfare, boat transportation and housing.  The damage to the boat did turn out to have a sunny side.  It had to go back to the factory for repairs and the Vespoli guy promised to have it fixed and delivered to Massachusetts in time for the race.  As far as housing, one of our rowing friends from the University of Tampa grew up near the race course.  His parents generously opened their house to us, exhibiting the friendliness that is part of the rowing community.  We were all set.  Friday night, we headed to Hartsfield and boarded our flight to Boston.

When we arrived at the course on Saturday, we were greeted with some stereotypical northern hospitality.  Vicki and MIT's lightweight coach had some history and the MIT crew was loudly referring to us as "GIT, 'git' off the water."  We'd see who needed to get off the water.  Chad was looking to spend the summer at the US National Pre-Elite camp and took the opportunity to talk with the camp's director, the coach of the Coast Guard Academy's crew.  After listening to Chad about his rowing experience and erg times, the guy told Chad he needed to work on his times and try again next year.  Chad was the strongest oar in our boat and would spend a successful summer at the Potomac Rowing Club's camp instead.  But to us, it seemed as though the guy had an issue with rowers from the South and club programs in general.  Add one more item to the list of things to prove.

We headed out for our heat as the only club program in the 18 boat field.  We drew lane 4 and followed the Fordham crew down the course to qualify for the finals later that day.  We got a great start in the finals, settling in with almost a half boat lead.  Through the first half of the course, we pulled out to almost a full boat.  However, Fordham was not finished yet.  They took their big move in the middle and took a half boat back from us.  We took our move and barely opened up a seat.  Through the third quarter, they pulled ahead and continued to open.  We mounted our sprint.  Sitting in second place, we couldn't chase with the wild, recklessness that we had in the Vails and Fordham was able to hold us off and take the victory.  On the positive side, we put a severe beating on both the MIT and Coast Guard crews.  I guess actions do speak louder than words.  With a mixture of joy and disappointment, we collected our silver medals, loaded The Sting on Miami's trailer and caught our flight back home.

Looking at the milestones we broke and success we had at the national level, I think this is truly one of the special boats in Tech Crew's history.    Since MIT finished 6^th in the lightweight national championship race and we put a pretty thorough whipping on them, I feel comfortable saying that we were one of the ten fastest lightweight crews in the country that year.  Damn!  I also think this boat created within Tech Crew the "winning attitude": the expectation of success at the regional and national level, that has lead to its many current successes.  I hope that every novice that comes to the boathouse for their first practice eventually gets to row with a group of folks as good as the ones I rowed with.