Bowdoin Rowing

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Textile River Regatta 2016

As fall begins to set in up here in Maine, the Bowdoin Navy completed its first race of the year! The team traveled down to Lowell, MA to race with over 70 other colleges, high schools and clubs at the Textile Rive Regatta. Even through cloudy and overcast skies, the team shone and brought back plenty of hardware. Safe to say it was a promising start to the season!

The Navy entered 13 boats in 8 entries, earning 9 medals: 2 gold, 2 silver, and 5 bronze. Our team showed terrific depth as the Novice Women’s four took first and third, the Novice Men’s Eight took third, and the Lightweight Men’s Four took the gold. The team continued their success streaks into the afternoon with the Varsity Men’s Four taking second and fourth, and the Varsity Women’s Fours taking third, fourth and fifth. In the small boats, our singles took third and sixth, and the pair got third.

As always, we loved seeing our parents and alumni! Thank you to all who brought food and cheered from the sidelines. Thank you also to our wonderful alumni who came to support and race as well. We had alumni racing in the Club Singles and for Riverside Boat Club, as well as refereeing for US Rowing

Here’s to a fast season ahead! Look for us next in Worcester, MA racing at the Quinsigamond Snake Regatta on October 15.

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New England Championships 2016

Two spectacular weekends in a row!

Six Bowdoin crews traveled down to Massachusetts for the New England Championships, six Bowdoin crews advanced from their heats to the Grand Finals, and six Bowdoin crews came home with medals! It was a day of racing we will all remember for a long time to come.

Three golds: Men’s First Novice Four, Women’s First Novice Four, and Women’s Second Varsity Four

Two silvers: Men’s First Varsity Four and Women’s First Varsity Four

One bronze: Men’s Second Varsity Four

We were also able to honor our coach Gil Birney’s 20th year of coaching. The captains presented Coachie with a book of memories and shared stories with all the current Bowdoin rowers and coxswains, alumni, friends, and families of the team. Once more, Coachie, thanks for everything you do. You can’t imagine how much you and this team mean to all of us.
NERC 2016

And, of course, a big thanks to everyone else we saw at the race course! Your continuous and unconditional support inspire us at every race. We were pulling for you.

For some boats, this weekend marked the end of the spring season. Others have their toughest races ahead of them. In less than two weeks, the men’s and women’s first varsity fours and first novice fours will compete at Dad Vail in Philadelphia, PA. Should be fun.

Until then, please enjoy this compilation of our fearless coxswains.

NERC coxswains 2016

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Clark Invitational 2016, round two

The second round of the Clark Invitational was last weekend, and here’s what happened!

On the men’s side, the first and second varsity fours came in first their events, and the first and second novice fours came in second and fourth, respectively, in their event.

On the women’s side, we placed fifth in the varsity eights event, third in the novice eights event, second in the varsity fours event, first in the second varsity fours event, and first in the novice fours event.

This upcoming weekend is one of the biggest of the year – the New England Championships! Tomorrow will be a long and race-filled day. It’s what we’ve been training for all season and we’re pretty excited. To those of you coming out, see you there! 

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Clark Invitational and Knecht Cup 2016

On April 2nd, Bowdoin boats swept the Clark Invitational Regatta! Then we had a pretty cold week up here in Maine. This was for the best, though, considering the conditions we were about to face in New Jersey. The Bowdoin Navy withstood some crazy weather this past Saturday at the Knecht Cup, but, as one of our alumni said, the wind and sleet were merely a “calm day on the New Meadows”. Still, every boat managed to advance to either the Grand or Petite Finals!

Sunday’s races allowed Bowdoin to rake in five medals, and our other two boats finished top-three in their events.

In the Grand Final events, the women’s varsity A and B won gold and silver medals, respectively; the men’s varsity A and B won gold and bronze medals, respectively; and the men’s novice A won bronze. In the Petite Finals events, the women’s novice A came in second and the men’s novice B came in third. It was a nice feeling to come away from a day of racing where every single Bowdoin boat finished top three! Great job, Bears.

Thanks to all the families and alums who brought food and dogs and companionship to our trailer! And also a big thank you to the families who provided a much-needed rest stop on the way back up to Bowdoin. Everyone is safe and sound, ready to rig and get back to work this week.

Next up, the UMass Lowell Invitational on Saturday and the President’s Cup on Sunday.

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Camp Bob 2016

Day 3 Greetings from South Carolina! Thanks to a series of late flights and some car trouble, it took us a little while to get everyone here, but we all made it! It’s been brilliantly sunny and about 80 degrees every day so far, except for a quick 30 minute blast of a thunderstorm on Sunday afternoon. The heat has definitely been a shock to the system, even after our warm Maine winter, but most of us are trying to soak in as much vitamin D as we can while we’re here.

The food at camp is significantly better this year, which has been an exciting plot twist for us. That being said, we definitely appreciated the delicious catered barbecue that was put together by the lovely Nancy Riley tonight! Pulled pork, barbecue chicken, rice and beans, baked mac and cheese, cobbler, and sweet tea… one can’t complain!

Practice has been going well, too. We’ve had lots of side switches for the rowers and lots of time in different boats for coxswains. We may be a little rusty, but it’s so good to be back at it again. Looking forward to a fast spring.

Will keep you posted re: alligator sightings.

Day 8 The first races of the season were completed on Thursday and Friday of last week. The first varsity women, first novice women, and first novice men all won their pieces, and we had some close finishes across the board in the other events.

A group of novice men spotted some serious alligators the other day at practice. No one was eaten. See Doug’s Instagram @sustainableathlete for pix.

Yesterday was our annual trip into Charleston. Camp Bob’s limp potatoes, fried chicken, and iceberg lettuce were replaced by she-crab soup, fried green tomatoes, and many, many pigs worth of barbecue.

We had to part ways with Hide, one of our newest rowers, at the Charleston airport, but also got to welcome back two of our seniors, Martin and Julia. They’ll be thrown into the mix for our last week here. Approximately 200 other schools just showed up at Camp Bob this morning, too, so we’ll see how that goes!

Not to jinx anything, but we’ve been incredibly lucky with weather so far. The thunderstorms we anticipated in Charleston yesterday turned out to be a couple of grey clouds at worst, and today, the coldest day yet, is still around 50 degrees.

Day 11 Thank you so much to all of the amazing people out there who have sent us care packages! Crazy how fast this second week is going by.

Still 75 degrees and sunny most of the time, except for some chilly mornings. We hear you got some snow up in Maine…

More races lined up for tomorrow. Let’s go black!

Day 13 The final day has come!

The whole fleet made it out onto the water this morning for the famous Potato Creek Scramble, an epic 500 m mixed line-up dash. Coxswain Elena “Baby G” Gleed won the gunwale race by a landslide.

By now, all of our boats are packed up and ready for the trip home. Coachie, Edie, Doug, and two little carpools of roadtrippers have already departed. Drive safe, kids! The rest of us will hop on a bus to the Charleston airport at 3 am tomorrow.