Walking along trails and watching the boats glide past Boathouse Row, I have always wondered what it would be like to row on the Schuylkill. On Sept. 14, I went from watching to participating. Early that morning, I climbed into a boat at Drexel University’s boathouse with members of the Conestoga Crew Club to see what rowing is really like.
Seniors and captains Hudson Dunkle, Toscane Franchet and Jack Sauder, who have each been rowing for four years, walked me through the basics. They explained that high school rowers often practice six days a week, including dry-land conditioning.
Dunkle and I started by transporting a double scull — a boat that holds two — from the storage rack onto the dock. It took two people to move it, one on either side, and I learned how to position my arms so that the boat stayed level.
I grabbed the oars, slid them into the oarlocks and tightened them to the boat so they would not move while I rowed.
Getting into the boat was a process that was entirely new to me. After taking off my shoes, I carefully stepped and lowered myself onto the sliding seat on the center bench. In order to keep the boat from flipping, we kept one hand on the dock and the other on the oars. Dunkle gave a push off the dock, and we drifted out into the Schuylkill.
Once we were on the river, Dunkle explained how to flip the oars from feathered, facing up, to squared, perpendicular to the water. After a few tries, I could feel the balance.
Dunkle broke down the parts of a stroke: catch, drive with the legs, swing the back, finish with the arms, then release and recover quickly. I practiced the motion slowly while he kept the boat steady, focusing on each specific part.
Once I understood the proper form, I began to do a few strokes on my own. The boat inched forward, around four or five miles per hour, slower compared to the pace that seasoned rowers may achieve, but fast enough that I felt the resistance of the water. After that, Dunkle set the pace, and I managed to keep up with continuous strokes, and the boat glided straight and steady. Matching his movements was harder than it looked, but we soon fell into a rhythm and our boat traveled smoothly across the current.
After our stint in the water, we turned around and headed back for the dock. We removed the oars, lifted the boat from the water, carried it up the dock and returned it to its rack in the boathouse.
I enjoyed every part of the morning and felt like I picked up a lot in just one session. Rowing next to Dunkle made it easier to stay on pace and understand how the timing works. Watching crew from Kelly Drive is fun, but actually getting on the river, working with a teammate and making the boat move is much more exciting.
Sosi Sengal can be reached at [email protected].
