Redwood Shores Regatta at the Port of Redwood City

As a parent exclaimed, this was the Zen of spectator sports: viewing the race from the start. Watching the boats put in, the rowers warm up, the other crews appear from somewhere down-channel, the officials align the boats to the (imaginary) starting line. They're off! The oars pry the shells forward. The rowers go through their opening cadence, then settle down into the body of the race. Around the bend they go, and then ... no more. What happened? Who won? How'd we finish? No answers until minutes later, when the guy who's connected by cellphone hears from the person at the other end of the course.

Two Berkeley boats won first place: the women's pair - racing for the first time - and the women's JV4B+, going one on one against NorCal in the last race of the day. Congratulations! The men's and women's novice eights each took second, losing to NorCal, in early races. The women's lightweight 4+ fell to Los Gatos by eight seconds. The men's lightweight 4+ took third place, four seconds behind 2nd place Serra and eight seconds off the pace set by the winning NorCal boat. The men's freshman 8+ lost (what must have been) a dogfight, finishing third, one second behind Serra and eight seconds behind first-place NorCal.

Other boats started strong, but faltered, either within view of the crowd or somewhere around the bend. Crew is a matter of executing your plan, taking care of your technique at every moment, winning stroke after stroke. More work, and try again next week!

Race results, as posted on row2k.com (pdf)

::