Congratulations to all our “mods,” which is to say middle school rowers, and their coaches Randy & Don for a successful day at the races. The Mod Champs is always a fun, scrappy affair. This year, our coxed quad came in second. Congratulations to rowers Gabe, Benji, Hayden, and Foster , and to coxswain Isabella!
Check out below. You can watch them go!
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It’s not easy when we have to let go one of our long-committed BRASS rowers. But it’s always a pleasure to be a part of someone’s early discovery of a love for rowing. Gabriella started with us when she was twelve, in 2015. Rowing with our juniors in fall and spring, she always made us proud–reliable, strong, talented.
Now a student at Emma Willard, Gabriella continues to row, and to excel at it. 
Why, just this morning she’s racing in a four at Scholastic Rowing Association of America Nationals in Nashport, Ohio. Congratulations, Gabriella! We miss you but wish you well!
Update: they just finished third in their heat, so will move on to semi-finals!
We just acquired a new quad, a lightweight of the sort we’ve been searching for for years now. Well done to Tom C. who regularly checks Row2K for high quality used equipment, to the equipment team for vetting it, and to the board for voting it through!
It will be delivered sometime in July. Now to make room in our boathouse…
The boathouse was busy on Saturday. The sun was out, the wind was gentle, the water is slowly warming up, and people are learning to row.
A couple people from Berkshire Nautilus decided to make the move to outdoor exercise, learning to row in a free session as a perk of their gym membership.
Our BRASS boys were all focus as they got out on the water.
And a novice trio got into Oh Yeah with Callum so he could show them how it’s done.
As if that weren’t enough, Olivia got everyone in planks.
It would be tough to imagine a better way to start the weekend.
We usually don’t need to worry about bottoming out in certain especially shallow parts of the lake until late summer. These days, we wouldn’t even need to worry about it if we were planning to row across the parking lot.
But the sun’s out now and will be again tomorrow so maybe things will begin to dry up.
Spring, so long in coming this year, might finally be upon on us. How do I know?
So come on down and row, for all is ready.
One of our juniors, Teague, made it through the winter without rowing by writing a research paper about rowing. Check it out and share it with friends whom you’ve been trying to get to join us on the water. It might whet an appetite!
Onota Lake isn’t too deep. This means, among other things, a little wind can really get the water going, which can present a problem when you’re in a single and it’s early in the season. Low water temperatures make the prospect of capsizing not only unappealing but risky.
But you’ve set aside this time, and you got yourself out of bed and down to the boathouse. So what are you gonna do, not row? Of course not.
About 1000 meters from the boathouse if you row hugging the shore (which you should because the water is cold and you want an easy way out of it should it come that that), on the north end of the lake, on the east side of Thomas Island, there’s a little cove that we of BCR call the Williams Cove because that’s where the Williams College boathouse is. It’s 400 meters long going east to west, and it’s usually protected from wind and choppy water.
This the perfect place for drills or short sprints. Up and back five times you’ve done 4000 meters, plus the 2000 meters it is to get there and back. If you’re ever looking for ideas about what drills do what, be in touch via email and keep watch of this blog site.
And, sorry, but no pictures just yet. The water’s been too choppy to risk taking out my phone!
If you’re a rower in New England, you have two choices for getting on water in winter. Go south or go west. Giovanna, who hails from California in the first place, went west. She reports back, “For February break, I was a visiting rower at the Los Angeles Rowing Club (LARC) in Marina del Rey, CA. 
She rowed in coxed ladies eights for four rows, 
which were coached by LARC staff at 5 am in Marina Del Rey harbor.
Sea lions lined the docks. The full moon lit up the harbor.”
Sounds good! Maybe just the thought of it will get us through to when there’s water in New England.
That’s what they say, anyway. Rowing, as photogenic a sport as it is, is not much of a spectator sport. Regattas make for long days, and boats racing by tend to do it quickly. They’re a lot more fun when you’re in one of those boats.
Linda is one of our most enthusiastic rower of team boats. You’ll usually find her in a quad when she’s at the lake. When she’s not rowing, though, she’s working with other sorts of teams that also aren’t much interested in spectators. As founder and president of Dulye & Co. and the Dulye Leadership Experience, Linda thrives on helping companies and their employees go “spectator-free.” Since 1998, she has introduced effective two-way communication practices in organizations, large and small, that have measurably improved professional relationships, personal reputations and team performance.
In a few days, she’ll be speaking here in Pittsfield to area human resource employees and other organization leadership to help in their flow of communication ad effectiveness. It’s as important in business and non-profit work as it in a team boat.
To get everyone pulling in the same direction: best of luck with it, Linda!