{"id":330,"date":"2018-12-17T19:32:45","date_gmt":"2018-12-17T19:32:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mainemaritime.edu\/mariner\/issue3-2018\/?p=330"},"modified":"2024-07-18T20:09:12","modified_gmt":"2024-07-18T20:09:12","slug":"rowing-with-heart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mainemaritime.edu\/mariner\/issue3-2018\/features\/rowing-with-heart\/","title":{"rendered":"Rowing with Heart"},"content":{"rendered":"

SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 8<\/h3>\n

As crew members of the MMA rowing teams stood facing the waterfront of SUNY Maritime College, the scene couldn\u2019t have been more different from the one they left behind in Castine.<\/p>\n

To the west, the towering skyline of New York City. In the water, teams from SUNY, Massachusetts Maritime, U.S. Coast Guard, and U.S. Merchant Marine academies, practicing for races about to commence, coxswains shouting to their crews to quicken the pace.<\/p>\n

The two MMA teams were all MUGs (Midshipmen Under Guidance), some of whom had never rowed before just two weeks earlier when they began training for the George C. Previll Memorial Inaugural Inter-Academy Monomoy Challenge.<\/p>\n

There was one unspoken question in each of their minds.<\/p>\n

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 29<\/h3>\n

Lifeboat races between maritime academies were common in the 1950s and \u201960s. But in recent years, none had been held, with the exception of an annual competition between Kings Point and SUNY Maritime, sponsored by the Marine Society of the City of New York.\u00a0Members of the Society resolved to bring back the inter-academy races this year.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen they contacted us,\u201d says Dean of Maritime Training and Commandant Nathan Gandy \u201992, \u201cI looked at it as an opportunity for engagement with the other schools and said, \u2018We\u2019ll absolutely do it.\u2019 Although I really didn\u2019t know what \u2018it\u2019 was in the very beginning.\u201d<\/p>\n

The task of organizing and training MMA teams was given to Lieutenants Lonnie Christian and Kyle Willette, company officers for the regiment who put out the call for \u201cmotivated MUGs\u201d to volunteer on Day 5 of RPT (regimental preparatory training).<\/p>\n

Among them was Ethan Belesca, marine engineering technology major. \u201cInitially, there were 40 MUGs who volunteered and were chosen to head down to the waterfront to see what we could do,\u201d he says. \u201cFor the first few practices, there were four boats until we eventually narrowed it down to two.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lifeboat handling is a normal part of preparatory training: learning how to row and work as a team and following commands, which are described in The Maine Brace<\/em>. \u201cFor many, it\u2019s their first exposure to being on the water and on a boat with other crew members,\u201d says Willette.<\/p>\n

Different courses were charted along the waterfront, and as the teams solidified, so did the intensity of the effort. The strongest rowers and coxswains were identified \u201cas we tried out what worked through trial and error,\u201d says Willette. \u201cWe saw what worked for one boat, then we\u2019d apply it to the others.\u201d<\/p>\n

Everyone was encouraged to make suggestions, and those with more experience, such as Kailyn Russell, a marine transportation operations major who had worked as a deck hand on the schooner Margaret Todd<\/em> in Bar Harbor, had ideas.<\/p>\n

\"Kyle

Company officers, Lieutenants Lonnie Christian and Kyle Willette led\u2014and inspired\u2014the teams.<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cPeople were really receptive, and we\u2019d try different things and if it worked, we would use them,\u201d she says. \u201cSo that was cool.\u201d<\/p>\n

Forming relationships, learning from one another, problem-solving, developing communication skills, and watching leadership emerge were just some of the benefits that came from the two weeks of practice on the waterfront.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd we did the physical work,\u201d says Willette, \u201cfrom rowing for stamina, control and sprints to using the full body for maximum power, stroke coordination, and technique.\u201d
\n\u201cAs race day at SUNY approached, there were definitely a lot of things we needed to work on,\u201d says Russell. \u201cThere was the excitement of racing against one another here at MMA, but we really had no idea how we were going to match up against the other teams, some of whom had been doing this for years.\u201d<\/p>\n

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 7<\/h3>\n

On the nine-hour bus ride from Castine to New York, the 28-member crew, of which 15 would compete as two boat crews and seamanship team, went over their strategy. The seamanship part of the competition would involve a timed rescue that required rowing to and retrieving a five-gallon bucket, which represented a man overboard; heaving one line for distance and another for accuracy; and a knot-tying relay.<\/p>\n

The relay would demand each person in a six-member team tie a specified knot in turn for speed and correctness. This had not been thoroughly practiced in the run-up to the race, so as the bus rumbled south, the relay team worked on perfecting their bowlines, half-hitches, figure-eights and others with determination, challenged by occasional bumps in the road.<\/p>\n