GLRF returns to USRowing Northwest Masters Regional Champs

29 June 2009 - Vancouver, United States; 29 Jun 2009 - Vancouver;  GLRF hosted a vendor booth at the 2009 USRowing Northwest Masters Regional Championship Regatta 26 – 28 Jun 2009.  Under sunny skies, crews competed on mostly flat water with some occasional wind gusts that threw in a few start and finish complications (as well as booth display challenges). The event was held on Vancouver Lake in the city of Vancouver.  For those who might be confused, there are two Vancouver’s in the northwest region of North America: Vancouver, Washington and Vancouver, British Columbia.

For GLRF, the event offers a chance to develop awareness among a large geographic representation of attending clubs and rowers: 45 clubs participated from Alaska, Texas, New Jersey, California, Washington, Oregon, and almost every club in British Columbia.  This year marks the third time GLRF has hosted a booth at the Northwest Masters Regional Championship.  GLRF members from Washington, Oregon and British Columbia stopped by to say hello, and even after 6 years of GLRF’s presence on the regatta scene, several rowers came into the booth with surprise and wonder having not known of GLRF’s existence. The GLRF Bisweptual shirts were the hot ticket as rowers brought their entire team to the booth to view the shirt and read the GLRF.info dictionary definition of bi-swept-u-al.

USRowing hosts regional masters events all over the United States.  Traditionally, the events are meant to offer local competition where clubs in a given regional area are given a competitive priority in a race (if an ex-regional club wins first place, the highest placing regional crew will also earn a gold medal). The US northwest region includes Alaska, Washington, Oregon, Montana, Wyoming, and North and South Dakota.  However, due to the tremendous increase in popularity for this event, the competitive priority rule has been suspended. As of this year, the competition is simply race and win.  In the past four years, the regatta has experienced an exponential growth, with entries jumping from 500 to 900. This year alone saw a 100 + increase in crew participation: 970 people competed in 900 entries.

James Rawson, the USRowing Northwest representative indicated that time is so tight that the regatta committee has had to eliminate the traditional 20-minute breaks.  The Friday race schedule starts after the coach and coxie meeting at 10:30h with races held on 6 minute centers from 12:00h to 18:30h and on Saturday and Sunday, races arer held on 7 minute centers beginning at 07:00h and extending to 17:30h and 15:00h, respectively. Rawson said that on a per capita basis, the Northwest Masters Regional Championship is as well subscribed as the US Masters National Championship, and has effectively reached its capacity in its current configuration and structure.