Blog of Bermanism

This last weekend, my recreational crew, the Rowtinis, had our chance to test our mettle in a friendly competition with the rest of the recreational crews at the Austin Rowing Club. This race is called the Dan Merrick cup and it is held once a year for the sheer benefit of having the rec crews compete with each other. The Rowtinis have won for the last two years, and we were determined to win this year also. We were a little worried, however, because we were up against an all men’s crew that rows more than once per week, and we only practice on Wednesdays. They were by far our greatest competition, so we had to turn up the intimidation factor.

We always create team shirts to wear during the race, and this year’s design topped them all. It didn’t make any sense, but it was great anyway. Since the main theme for the Rowtinis is that we’re a drinking team with a rowing problem, the image on the front of the shirt depicted a martini glass tipping over and spilling its contents while our Rowtini eight person boat rowed out of the glass and over the spill. The best part is that the boat and its inhabitants were glowing and on fire! The background of the image was a psychedelic mixture of blue and purple and donned the title, “Rowtinis”, in menacing 3D black and shiny letters at the top. As always, each shirt had a letter on the back that, when all eight people were in the boat, spelled rowtinis from stern to bow.

Well, the intimidation seems to have worked. We pulled ahead of the Men’s boat almost immediately and ended up 8 seconds ahead of them at the finish, almost two full boat lengths, and we have three women rowers in our boat! We were at least 30 seconds ahead of all the other boats, which was just kinda sad for them, but they’re new and getting much better every time they row. The second heat, which was more for fun this year, was a little closer of a race. One of the other crews, The Strokes of Genius, were given a 30 second lead on us and the Men’s Wrec crew. We started and immediately had our lead on the Men. But, they were either pulling harder, or we weren’t pulling as hard, because we spent 3/4 of the race stern to bow with them, just barely ahead. Well, we ended up catching up to the Strokes, and pulling ahead of them by 1/2 a boat length, and we took up our stroke rating a bit at the end and pulled ahead of the Men by about one length. It was a much closer race, but we won anyhow. So, for the third year in a row, the Rowtinis have taken the Dan Merrick cup! Does anyone dare defeat us?

Trackback URI | Comments RSS