From Christina Richards at the University of Georgia:
"The University of Georgia Crew suffered from severe vandalism last night. Rowers arrived this morning at the boathouse to de-rig and load boats in preparation for their SERCS regatta. They found that most of their equipment and portions of their recently completed boathouse had been burned. The student run club team was recently granted permission by the Georgia Department of Natural Resources to build a permanent boathouse within Fort Yargo State Park in Winder, GA. One of the volunteer coaches, a graduate student, designed the boathouse and parents and local businesses donated all of the materials and labor to build the boathouse. The team had just finished the roof on Sunday and was looking forward to a week of training at Rollins College boathouse in Winterpark, Florida.
Apparently, the vandals used gas and spray paint cans from the boathouse to ignite the fire. The known damage includes 6 Vespoli shells: 2 women's fours, 2 women’s eights, and 2 men’s fours. The team is left with 2 men’s eights which were damaged with spray paint down the length of the boats. Local teams have offered to help UGA by loaning them boats for tomorrow’s race. The team hopes they can borrow boats, until they can replace theirs, to be able to compete this season."
John Hogan of Mariner Insurance informed row2k that the boathouse, while in bad shape, wasn’t destroyed, but the team’s entire fleet was essentially destroyed. Mariner insures the team’s shells.