So I've been sitting on this blog post for a couple of days now and since Dave and Kalmoe have been so good about keeping you all up to speed with their posts, I have been inspired to finally put something up myself. So...

After being here in New Zealand for 10 days the wind has finally shown itself for the past two days. I had a feeling that the wind would start to pick up as racing got closer.  Row2k has asked me to blog to give the coxswain's perspective and a coxswain’s perspective of wind is that it blows.  For example yesterday morning we launched when the lake was calm and beautiful. With 4k to go the wind started to really pick up.  We dealt with it pretty well and we were all pleased with our focus.  Then came the worse part…docking.  Docking an 8+ while waves crash over the dock is not fun.  That is when I start to sweat.  Docking at this regatta has been an experience.  The first phase was heading in bow first after having to negotiate four bright big hippity-hop buoys. After learning that I didn’t have to row past all four buoys I went into phase 2 of docking and that was to cut in between the buoys and then still head in bow first.  After having one too many small boats cut in front of us while we took the time to spin an 8+, I decided to join the other boats with phase 3, which is backing into the dock.  We’ve managed to master backing into the dock these past few days, which made yesterday a little easier. 

With our coach standing by to catch the 2- on the upwind side, Tom told us to land on the other side of the dock, the side that the wind blew us away from.  So I did what most coxswains would do…started to pit out and asked my girls to listen up because it was going to take some creativity.  So we lined up as if we were going to land behind Erin and Susan and started to back up slowly using the wind to push us to our side of the dock.  We stopped right before our stern hit the dock and just when we blew clear I told stern four to back and stopped to let our blades glide over the dock while our coach grabbed our stroke seat’s blade.  I told bow seat, Anna Goodale, to gently row to keep our boat parallel with the dock as Tom pulled us in. 

Meanwhile on the other side of the dock the German W8+ was backing to land and got pushed into Erin and Susan so they quickly walked their boat down while Tom ran to grab them so they didn’t hurt their boat on the corner of the dock.  Getting out of the boat was the fun part because the wind made it so choppy that it made the boats bounce up and down against the dock.  Calling the boat overhead was the last challenge because we didn’t want the wind to catch the girls off guard.  Sometimes a boat can act as a sail when picking it up and out of the water.  We quickly brought the boat to shoulders and went about our business. 

After our rows we usually...

--stretch

--wait for lunch

--try to use the slow but free internet

--catch the bus back to our hotel

The 8+'s race tomorrow and I'm looking forward to racing my first race since Beijing!  

Steer Straight!

Mary

www.9thseat.com

PS--Thanks row2k for asking Washington rowers to keep you all informed!  Huskies.