The Independent Rowing News

Photo of Victoria Burke, (1st, LW women), Jon Winter, (2nd, LW Men), Umberto Dentis, (RSC Cerea--host club--President) and Michael Sivigny (3rd Men) all GMS rowers on the podium at Silverskiff by David Burke

The following entries are from Jon Winter during his travels in Europe to the 9k Armada Cup in Switzerland and the 11k Silverskiff in Turin, Italy. Winter was a U23 National team member in 2006, where he earned silver in LW quad at Worlds, and a 2009 Senior LW Senior National team member. He is currently at UConn Law School, rows with GMS and will be heading to Speed Orders Nov 14. There is only minor editing to the below notes from abroad, which he sent out to friends and family as he raced and traveled.

European Rowing Adventure

Oct-26

Right now I am sitting on the plane ready to fly to Zurich.  I race Armada Cup in Bern, Switzerland on Oct 31.  This should be a wild race. The start is in a large basin, and they line us up 25 boats across, 10 rows deep- about 250 singles.  It’s a mass start...they line us up and shoot off a cannon.  Then everyone starts. After 400 meters (1min 45sec) there is a 90 degree turn.  After that its 8.5km to the finish. Lucky for me I start in row 2, behind an Italian lightweight I have raced before.  The Italian is sandwiched between two Estonians (who I assume are rather large).  So I should have a relatively clear path off the start.

Filippi has generously provided me yet again with a boat for two weeks while I am in Europe...I only pay a modest transportation fee from Bern to Torino, Italy!

So I am off to Zurich, then Lucerne for a day (to help a friend move), then racing in Bern, train to Italy, racing in Italy, then back home just before my professors start wondering where I went......(Hopefully)....well I actually told them and they were fine with it.

Last weekend I raced at Head of the Fish in Saratoga Springs, NY.  This race was hosted by the same club that hosted the race two weeks ago where I won money to pay for my current rowing adventures.  The prizes at this event are mounted trophy fish heads...I couldn't imagine what the guy who did the taxidermy smells like now!

Anyways, I raced the lightweight 1x and the open 2x (with Brian Tryon). I won the 1x by 10 seconds (over my roommate Brian deRegt)...I actually had the fastest 1x time of the day (hwt and lwt)...so that was nice. Then Brian Tryon and I won the 2x by 1 min 15 sec.  It was pouring rain all day, but luckily I brought tarps.  We pulled my car up next to a tree (complete with 4 singles on the roof) and made a tarp tent between my car and the tree.  It kept us dry enough... I spent most of the day sitting in my car/tent wrapped up in my 0 deg sleeping bag...

The races were 3200 meters long...so just under 12 minutes.  The races in Europe are 9000 and 11000 meters long...they should take 35-45 minutes...just because the race was 3200 meters long doesn't make it easier than the 11k race...to win, your pace needs to be faster, and you pace the race less.  In the 11k, you need to have a plan in terms of pace or heart rate, otherwise you risk going too hard or too easy.  Head races are different than 2k sprint races, because in 2k races you are side by side, and you always know how your pace is.  I guess this will happen with the mass start, but there is a big danger in winning the race to the turn (400 meters away) and burning up your reserves too early for the 8.5km remaining...so we will see what happens.

That's all for now...the flight attendant just told me to turn my phone off.

Jon

Chocolate...and other parts of Switzerland

Oct-30

Right now I am in Bern, Switzerland, preparing for Armada Cup.  Since arriving on Tuesday, I went to Lucerne for a day.  This is where I raced earlier in the summer at World Cup III in the lightweight men's double. Dave Gable hosted us while we were over there. At the time he was living in the See Club Lucerne boathouse in the 3rd floor apartment, because he was the head coach there.  He starts a new job in nearby Thalwil, so he needed to move out by Nov 1.  I went by and rowed twice in a quad, and spent the rest of the day doing my weight training in the form of lifting furniture up and down 4 flights of stairs.  I made sure to eat plenty of chocolate in Lucerne.  One of the big chocolate stores in Switzerland (Merkur) has an orange/pistachio dark chocolate bar...I'vebeen eating plenty of that.

I left Lucerne on Wednesday and took the train to Bern.  I am staying at a Backpackers hotel in the center of the city, and the race course is about 15-20 minutes away by bus.  The Filippi trailer arrived Wednesday night in Bern, so I met the Swiss Filippi dealer at the boathouse and unloaded boats for myself, Mike Sivigny, Geoff Hoffman, and Dave Gable. It was dark at this point, so too late to row, but I was still tired from the morning's row and stair climbing, so I ate some food and went to sleep.

I went down to the course early the next morning to work on rigging my boat.  Filippi brought me a 2009 single with their newest model rigger. It’s a really nice boat.  By the time I finished rigging, Mike Sivigny arrived at the course to un-wrap his brand new single.  We went for a row on the course to try to figure out where to row...and the water is interesting to say the least.  It is incredibly clean...Basically clear
water, but there are a bunch of sand bars and weeds to be careful of. So it’s nice to have a few rows over the course to figure out where to line up during the race.  There is a trade off in these types of courses...If you cut it too close, you hit the sand bar and need to stop, but if you line up just right, you shave off precious seconds from your time.  I've rowed over the course three times now, so I hope to
steer this course better than I did at Head of the Charles.

In other exciting news, I got some new wheels!  Well just a basic kick scooter (like the razor scooter).  You see a lot of people riding around on these around Switzerland, and it’s nice to shorten the walk times from the hotel to the train station and the bus stop to the rowing club.  It will also be nice to have this in Italy...the last two years I rented a car in Italy, and this year I decided to do without.  The train/tram/bus system in Switzerland is great, and the train stop in Italy is only a
mile or so away from our hotel and the course.

Racing is tomorrow at 2:30 local time.  No live race broadcasts that I
know of, but results and other info should be at www.armadacup.ch

I start bow number 37 in the 2nd row of 10 rows...should be wild.

-Jon

First Race Done

Oct-31

Armada Cup is over.  I made it through without breaking my boat!!  I also raced pretty well.  The mass start was crazy.  245 boats went off all at once.  Singles make very small wakes, but if you put 245 singles together, all the wakes add up to one large swell.  It was wild to look behind me to see 200 boats all going in the same direction.  About 300 meters in there was a 3 boat pileup in front of me, luckily I avoided that.  I pretty much spent the entire race in choppy water, but really the only one that gets clear water...that's the winner.  Mike got a lucky last minute change...Marcel Hacker, the German sculler, dropped out of the race, so with Mike's Head of the Charles win, they put him in the front row.

Most of the race I just tried to avoid hitting people and the sand banks.  The water has a dam at one end, and apparently the water got a few inches lower last night...so I ended up getting my oar blades caught in the sand a little, but no big catches...

I had a lot of fun, ended up 17th after starting 37...Mike got 6th, Geoff Hoffman got 29^th....so it was a good race.

That's all for now...I'm going to the regatta party...send questions if you have any.

A more detailed race recap

Nov-1

I didn't fully explain the scene of the race in my last update...so here it goes.

Woke up around 8, had some breakfast, went to the course via bus, and arrived around 1030.  The road was filled with trailers and people rigging boats.  We got our start numbers and got ready to race.  The race staging area is at the finish line.  It’s a one direction 8.3km race with a mass start.  This creates a lengthy boat launching timetable. Boats were launched in reverse bow number...so 245 launched around noon.  The race start time was 2:30...and the last boat took 1 hour to complete the course...so it’s possible that a few people were on the water for over 3 hours!

Since I was bow 37, I launched with the last group.  For me it takes about 50 minutes to get to the other end of the lake...this is at a very, very easy pace.  Can't go too hard before the race...otherwise it would impact my performance.

I made it to the start about 10 minutes before the gun, so just enough time to find my start position in the grid, have some water and GU (energy gel).

The grid is set up with large white buoys marking the outside of the grid; there are two lines of these, one line on either side of the grid.  Then, at the front of the grid, there are buoys marking each column, but only for the first row (maybe last as well, but I never had a chance to look).

At the start, there was one boat where the race marshals told us when we had 2 minutes to the start.  After that, just wait for the bang.  I got ready to do a start (same thing I would do for a 2km race).  The start cannon shot up a small rocket or firework, and the firework exploded in mid air, and everyone went.  It was just a noise maker, so no shower of sparks.  The funny thing about the start is that nobody waits for the final explosion.  Lucky for me, I was looking to my left and I could see the smoke trail going up into the air, so I saw smoke and I went.  Or maybe I heard other people start...either way the next 5 minutes were absolute mayhem.    You spend the entire first 2 minutes trying to get to the turn and take the short course while avoiding the pile up that ultimately happens at the 90 deg turn. Then you spend the next 3 minutes passing people who went off the start too fast.  The problem is that you don't pass one by one, its more a clump of people about the same speed pass a clump of people who went out too fast...so basically 10 people are getting passed by 10 people all across the width of the river, while everyone is trying to end up on one side of the course to avoid the weeds.

After everyone gets into position and some get stuck in the weeds, the mayhem continues, but at a lesser degree.  I basically spent 95 % of the race next to a Swiss sculler (Jeremy)  who stayed at my house a few days before and after Head of the Charles.  I hit a sand bank, he would get ahead a little, I got an inside turn, I would get ahead, and so on down the course, until he hit the last sand bank and I rowed past him.  I ended up crossing the line 10 seconds behind a lightweight from Denmark, Mads Rasmus-Quist.   I think Mads is a 3 time world champion in the lightweight double, so it was good to come in close to him.

Now, I am off to Italy on a train.  I think we pass through/over the Alps, so should be some nice scenery (if I stay awake).

That's all for now,
Jon

A Ciocolatta calda adventure

Nov-3

We arrived in Turin (aka Torino) by train on Sunday night.  We were greeted by a member of the organizing committee, who brought us to our hotel, which is very close to the train station.  After a quick dinner and 12 hours of sleep, we woke up in the morning to some less than ideal weather.  It was raining, but we rolled down to the course (using our kick scooters), and found our boats on the Filippi trailer.  Usually when I come to Turin, I spend the first hour or so finding my boat and
rigging/adjusting.  Usually this process takes an hour when I first land because of the jet lag...Normally if I were to fully rig and adjust a single, it would probably only take me 20-30 minutes...This time, all that was necessary was bolting the rigger on the boat, un-packing the oars, and we were good to go.  Nice to use the same boat for the entire trip, so we only need to rig once.  By the time the boats were rigged,
the rain stopped.  Just an easy paddle on the race course.  Monday night, Mike and I went to dinner with one of the club members, his wife and John Flory.  John is another multiple time attendee of the SilverSkiff (also a G-man plan follower).  We went to dinner in a hill top village over looking the turnaround of the race course.  The village is called Moncalieri.  Dinner was incredible.  We started with bruscetta, then I had a risotto for my first course and catch of the day for the main course.  They called the fish "John Dory” It was a white fish, but I don't really know how it translates into English correctly. Either way, it was stuffed with rosemary, baked whole with lemon, olive oil and potatoes.  The server skinned and boned the fish right in front of us, and it was delicious.

Northern Italy has a specific type of hot chocolate (chiolata calda). It is basically a melted chocolate bar with a little milk.  This is one of my favorite parts of piedmont region.  I have my favorite, but we decided to ask our hosts where to go for their favorite chiolata calda. So this afternoon, after our row, Mike and I went on a ciocolata calda(CC) adventure of sorts...We found the bar, had a CC.  It was good,
but I am still partial to my choice.  I think it depends on who makes the CC...Our bar tender may have not been the normal CC maker, so the one we got was not as thick as expected.  Later, I had my favorite CC at the aperitivo bar close to the hotel.  At the aperitivo bars, you order a drink and have the buffet...usually the buffet has a variety of grilled or marinated vegetables and olives, spaghetti, small sandwiches, and other various Italian dishes in small bite-sized portions.  All for
around 9 euros. Quite a deal for a huge selection of delicious food and
my favorite CC in Torino.
Questions....
Hi Jon, sounds like a lot of fun in the race! Is rowing more popular in
Europe? It seems that the races draw more contestants there than in the US.

Actually, the largest regatta in the world is Head of the Charles.  1900 competitors and many, many more spectators.  The largest singles race in the world is SilverSkiff (where I race this weekend).  There will be over 500 singles on Sunday, with 200+ 13-16 year old singles on Saturday.  In the US, there are fall head races every weekend, with multiple races every weekend...In the spring this is different.  There are only so many 2km courses in the USA, and most of these have
relatively restricted access.  In Europe, every country has at least one, if not multiple 2km buoyed courses, so just about every weekend from May-July you can find a very competitive race in Europe.  Usually with one or more national teams attending, either in whole or in part.

I think the general attitude towards sports is different in Europe...In Europe, fans appreciate and seem to really enjoy watching pure athleticism...this can be just about any sport in any season, rowing included.  The fans seem to appreciate close contests...regardless of the sport.  It can be a close curling match, a close XC ski race, swim race, a good javelin throw...really anything.  In the US, people only
really like to watch Football, Baseball and Basketball.   So I guess this is the real difference.
Tomorrow, I will sample some of Turin's finest Gelato! (I may do some
rowing as well)
-Jon

Quick recap

Nov-8

Quick re-cap before I pack up my computer and head off to the party.  I  ended up 7th over all.  I was 2nd out of all the lightweights.  I beat Elia Luini and Marcelo Miani.  They were the LM2x for Italy that got 2nd.  I also beat Franco Sancassani who was in the Italian LM4x that won 2009 World Championships.  So, it was a great race for me.  My time was 42:36 over 11km.  GMS had a great day...we gave ourselves a self-proclaimed "efficiency" trophy.  Three athletes raced as GMS, and we got three medals.  Gold for Victoria Burke in the Women's Lightweight. Silver for me in the Men's Lightweight.  Bronze for Mike Sivigny.  Mike was 3rd over all, so he goes home with a medal and 600 Euros worth of gold coins.  There isn't an official efficiency trophy, but I think we still got one.  We went up to the podium after everything was finished and took a picture with the three GMS medalists and the club president. While we were up there, they were passing around an antique coffee grinder.  When we tried to give it back, they said no, so now we have a
giant antique coffee grinder...we haven't figured out what to do with it, but its coming back on the plane (probably in checked luggage).
That’s all for now, I will give a better description of the events when I have more time.  Now, its back to the real world...well I don't know that law school counts as the real world, but I guess its closer...Good thing I don't need to play catch up, I brought my books, and yes mom, I did read!

-Jon


SilverSkiff in a little more detail Nov-11

As I said in my last update, the racing went well for me and the rest of the GMS athletes...

The day started with a 7am wakeup and a ride down to the course on my improved kick scooter.   I say improved because the day before, David Filippi (president of Filippi Boats) gave me a Filippi decal to put on my scooter...Anyways, a quick ride down hill to CEREA (the rowing club that hosts the race).  The weigh in scales open at 8am.  I stepped on at 7:45 to check, and I was well under.  Well actually the Scale at SilverSkiff is intentionally forgiving, so really to make 72.5kg on the Silverskiff scale, you need to be less than 75kg or so.  At this time of the year I am usually under 75kg, but more than 72.5, so it’s nice to be able to enjoy Italian food.  8am weigh in, PB&J time; put my stuff together for racing.  The weather all week was really nice; unfortunately there was a pretty consistent rain all day on Sunday.  This made for cold conditions, which I have become used to after rowing in the snow at Head of the Charles.  So it was long tights and a Patagonia merino wool long-sleeve shirt for racing.  I also had a wool hat and a rain jacket to warm up in.  I started bow number 10.  The way the regatta works is there is bow number 1 starts at 10 am, and every 20 seconds, another boat follows...basically all day until the 500+ entries have all started.  You don't get a start time; you just calculate it based on your bow number.  For example, if you start bow 300, and there are 3 boats every minute, your start time will be 100 minutes after 10 am...ie 1140.  The course took me 42:36, so I finished, showered and ate lunch before number 300 had even started.

The course is much easier than Head of the Charles, so I didn't have a chance to really mess up.  Although, usually at this race I spend a few days rowing in Torino before racing, so I get to know the river pretty well.  Since it was raining and cold, I stayed in the dry and warm locker room up until I had to launch.  About 9:30, I grabbed my boat and walked down to the docks.  The great thing about starting number 10 is that there is no launching line.  It took me only a couple minutes to
get on the water, so I had about 25 minutes to warm up.  At around 10:03, I was racing on the course.  About 21 minutes later, I was at the top, spinning around the buoy.  About 4km into the race, I pulled even and passed bow number 9.  This is always a good thing to do, because by starting 9, it meant that this individual beat me last year.  So I knew that I was having a good race if I was already at least 20 seconds faster relative to last year.  The turn went fine...I basically caught a
crab, spun around the buoy and did a racing start.  The way back down was helped a little by the current, which was nice, because I was already pretty exhausted.  I came around the last turn before the finish, and as I went down the last straight section, I caught bow number 5.  I crossed the line and the screen flashed my time of 42:36, and also flashed my current position of 5th overall.  At that point, I
knew a podium position for the Lwts was possible, but I wouldn't get confirmation until later in the day.  The Lightweights who didn't race last year started in the low 200s, and as I came in, they weren't even on the course yet.  I knew there were some fast lightweights starting un-seeded...individuals such Elia Luini, who beat me at Armada Cup the week before.

I got off the dock, put my boat in slings and went straight to the warm
showers.   CEREA has a large dining room in the club, and every year they have a SilverSkiff menu.  Usually a pasta (primi), meat (secondi) and desert for a reasonable price.  Also in the dining room, they have large flat screen TVs with live results cycling through every 10 places.  After some good food, I went back over to my boat to find that Filippi had already de-rigged it.  That was great!  So I swapped out my shoes for the shoes that came with the boat.  I bring my own shoes
because I have size 12 feet, and usually Lwt singles come with size 9. By this time people were telling me that I was still in 7th position over all, and they thought all the lightweights had raced, which meant that I was still 2nd out of the lightweights.  A little later in the day, we had the awards ceremony....Photos here:
http://www.fotoline.org/2009-Pagina%20Canottaggio/80-Silver%20Skiff-P...

As I said in my previous update, Mike, Vicky and I went up to the podium
after the ceremonies were finished and took a photo with the club
president
http://picasaweb.google.com/jwinter06/ArmadaSilverSkiff2009?authkey=G....
They were passing around a coffee grinder, and when we went to give it
back, they said no, gave us the box and sent us home with it...the best
way to describe the thing is...well with a photo.
http://picasaweb.google.com/jwinter06/ArmadaSilverSkiff2009?authkey=G...

Later that night, we went to the regatta party at a former queen's
summer home.  The place was incredible, and so was the food.
http://www.fotoline.org/2009-Pagina%20Canottaggio/81-Silver%20Skiff-C...

After the regatta party, we went to the Huntsman pub, right down the
street from our hotel...then a little sleep, 6am drive to Milan in a
packed car.
http://picasaweb.google.com/jwinter06/ArmadaSilverSkiff2009?authkey=G...,
and a flight back to Newark.

Thanks again for all the emails!
-Jon