The HOCR Elves are very busy - all year long. Sherry Proctor, one of the HOCR’s hardest working elves, began working as a Regatta Volunteer in 1972 and took on the task of managing the buoyed course in 1979.
In the 1960’s and early ‘70’s the Regatta, like many others races, utilized a winter’s collection of white Clorox bleach and detergent bottles tied on ropes which were attached to bricks and cinderblocks to anchor them. Then from a moving launch (and careful not to foul the prop, this ‘buoy’ was tossed overboard in roughly the correct position). If it’s true that people find their own niche and balance in life, then there is possibly no finer example of this in the rowing world than the effort that Sherry has brought to the volunteer Course Committee over the past years.
An accomplished Cornell and MIT-trained architect, skilled in the craft of making people and places fit together (this doesn’t explain why he has had an fullsize 2 person glider on the ground floor of his barn-home in Manchester, MA), Sherry annually measures, designs, tests and retests components of the buoy-course system year (and throughout the winter and spring and summer as well). The end result is a highly honed long string of buoys into a fair and safe racing series of guideposts for Competitors and Umpires.
In the Regatta’s early days, the course was easier to set, but it was less precise. This sloppiness didn’t meet the standard of excellence that Sherry has set for himself and for the Regatta. Now, during a race when an oar blade snags a buoy and moves it out of position, the course committee launch ‘swoops’ in to the area and quickly repositions the errant marker so that the next race can be run fairly.
The good news for Sherry is that the river didn’t get any longer during his years of innovation on the race course. His tireless tweaking has made this serpentine pathway the most consistent, stable Head race course you’ll ever find. Anywhere. Above all, it is fair for all competitors to match their skills against.
Nowadays, the course buoys are weighted with concrete poured into re-stackable PVC piping. The entire length of the course, including the basin warm up area and finish areas has been depth-surveyed and appropriate length elastic cord holds high density flotation buoys in their correct position. The HOCR course has more than 300 orange, green, white, red and blue buoys, each one positioned exactly where they need to be, year after year. Employing an eclectic combination of Yankee ingenuity, fluid dynamics, surveying, mechanical engineering and boating skills, Sherry Proctor brings the course to life year after year. The Regatta competitors have the benefit of Sherry’s skills and passion.
But, all good things don’t last forever and after 30+ years of volunteering, Sherry is now going to turn over the sacred scrolls, buoys, blocks and cordage to a new crew that has spent 5 years apprenticing under his watchful eye. In commemoration of Sherry’s dedication to the Regatta, the granite Finish Line markers are now called the Proctor Posts.
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