Wrightsville Beach resident Michael Brown took up the sport at age 57 and rows both at home on Banks Channel and with the CFRRC. “We are blessed with lots of water here,” he says. “Rowing is great exercise that you don’t have to be in great shape to do. You don’t have to be young to do. It’s something that’s available to everybody. … And it’s good therapy. You can make it hard work but it doesn’t have to be hard work. I may not be the prettiest thing out there on the water, but it is a graceful exercise.” At the Wilmington Marine Center, just south of the Port of Wilmington, members have an ideal spot on a protected channel of the Cape Fear River separate from the main shipping channel. CFRRC moved its fleet of shells here in 2009 from its second home near the Isabel Holmes Bridge. Thomas Wright III helped launch the club, celebrating its 25th anniversary this year, and pro-vided property at the foot of Nun Street for a boathouse in 1989. The shells, everything from a single scull (one person) to a coxed eight (eight people plus a coxswain), are avail-able to all club members. The scullers, who row a single, two-person, or four-person shell, use two oars, held in place by oarlocks. The crews of the sweep boats, in four-person and eight-person shells, use a single oar. The most-senior member, Hargy Heap, 78, rows an Alden, a heavy and stable recreational single shell. He has • • been rowing for 42 years and began in Maine. “I’m scared of not having a boat to play with on the water,” he says. “I am going to keep doing this until I can no longer put that boat back.” A regular among the early morning group, Heap enjoys the solitude with only the pelicans perched on the pilings for company, the sky turning a burnished pink as the sun rises. Heap rows before the sun kicks up the wind. Others row after work, but everyone keeps an eye out for the wind, less than 10 mph is ideal, and the tide, because moving in the same direction as the wind is best. Other members prefer to share the experience with more oarsmen in their boat. Some love the thrill of com-petition, participating in the club’s four events each year: two 1,000-meter sprint races, in which boats line up head to head and start together; and two 5,000-meter head races, which are timed. Every year the club improves in the Masters class cat-egory (21 years old and older), anchored by coach Eric Ford. During summer 2014, the group came home with two second-place finishes and one third. Club member Donna Brown was looking for some-thing to replace her field hockey days when she moved to the region six years ago. “When it comes to whether I want to go out in a scull or be in a boat with three or seven other women, I would definitely take the boat with the other sweep rowers,” she www.wrightsvillebeachmagazine.com 61 WBM Above: Coach Eric Ford carries a single back to the storage racks. Opposite top: The Cape Fear River Rowing Club maintains its boathouse and dock at the Wilmington Marine Center. Fixed foot stretchers and a sliding seat allow rowers, like Michael Brown, opposite bottom, to derive power from their legs.
2014-9
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