GGRC Rowers from Somerville Win Gold at the CRI Fall Classic Regatta

On Saturday September 21st, Gentle Giant Rowing Club competed at the annual CRI Fall Classic Regatta on the Charles River in Brighton, MA. In rainy conditions, GGRC crews accomplished medal achieving finishes in a few events. The CRI Fall Classic Regatta is a 3-mile race which races in a “head race” format. Boats do not start side-by-side in marked lanes, they launch in a staggered start format and, although they are racing each other, they are also racing the clock.

The highlight of the day was taken by the GGRC Youth Women’s 4x or “Quad” which finished in first place. Rowers Elle Gys (Somerville), Ollie Bronson (Winchester), Celia Lavery (Winchester), Maddie Zucca (Somerville), and coxswain Eleanor Bogosian (Somerville) competed against crews from Lake Quinsigamond Community Rowing in Worcester, Great Bay Rowing in Dover, NH, and Amoskeag Rowing Club in Hooksett, NH. The rowers started strong and pulled hard throughout their race.

The quad event is a sculling race with four rowers. Typically, this event does not have a coxswain and the rower sitting in the bow seat will steer via a toe steering system that is installed in the boat. In this case, because the rowers are training for an event at Head of the Charles which requires a coxswain, they train and race with a coxswain.

There are two different types of rowing - Sculling and Sweep. The basic difference is that rowers that are Sculling use two oars and rowers that are Sweeping use one oar. Rowers generally learn to Sweep row first and then they learn to Scull. There are other items that differentiate the two types of rowing and rowers sometimes show a preference to one type over the other.

Weather was not ideal for the race. Rain was steady all day with a strong breeze which added a chill to the air. All the rowers were upbeat for their races.

GGRC brought home other medals as well, achieving 3rd place in the Men’s Masters 2x - Harrison Grams and Harout Khodaverdian, 2nd place in the Men’s Masters 4+ - James Mahoney, John McCarthy, Rich Whelan, Jeff Barry, and Coxswain Apple Gould-Schultz, and 3rd place in the Mixed 8 - James Mahoney, John McCarthy Matt Vayda, Mayur Khanna, Katie Riddle, Audrey Allen, Kacey Martin, Gwen Brown, and Apple Gould-Schultz. The mixed events require that the boat is made up of men and women rowers equally. For some of the rowers in this boat, this was their second race of the day.

There was a little bit of controversy in the Masters 8 race as, due to a technology glitch, one boat had an average age of 301 which gave them a very generous age handicap of 41:30. In rowing, handicaps are calculated for masters races based on the average age of the crew. The idea is that as crews age, they become slower and to “even the playing field, “ a formula is applied to deduct time from their finish time. This is done for fairness but, in this case, obviously something didn’t go quite right when the ages were calculated for the handicap. It took a few hours to confirm the accurate results, but once it was completed, the results were adjusted accordingly. The GGRC rowers will receive their third place medals this week.

Gentle Giant Rowing Club rows on the Mystic River in Somerville, MA out of the Blessing of the Bay Boathouse which is located at 32 Shore Drive. The club has programs for both youth and adult rowers and will be hosting an Introduction to Rowing session on Saturday, September 28th from 10am-12pm at their boathouse. Youth rowers in 8th-12th grade can come down and try out the sport. GGRC’s Spring Youth Rowing season will begin in March of 2025 - no dates have been set at this time. Adults are also welcome to stop by to see if rowing is something they’d enjoy doing. Questions on their rowing programs can be sent to membership@gentlegiantrowing.org.