The Next Few Weeks

You could say our season has finally started. Today, we concluded the FIRA Championship regatta with another consecutive win. Personally, this was a good test, for my boats and all my teammates. Lately, things had been feeling blunt and only racing had the ability to fix it.

The weekend started with the varsity 8+ final which finished 4 second in front of Rollins and 6 seconds ahead of Georgia Tech. Little reminder that the morning began with 15-20 mph head/cross winds creating a rough course. Even though those conditions aren't likable, we actually train in them somewhat often allowing us to feel more comfortable. With this initial win, the JV8+ swung ahead of their field and won easily. Next up was the Frosh 8+ and lets just say that the event always comes with some pressure. Reason is, we've won it 7 years in a row, but the freshmen didn't let us down, and won by a length as they battled a Rollins high-rate-racing crew. With a nice sweep on the 8's field, we moved on to the fours.

The JV4+ went out first in the grueling weather. As they passed us, they were the cleanest group out there leading with confidence. Next was the Frosh 4+, who had won their heat and the overall times by 20 seconds. Luck was not on their side today as their skeg broke. It was obvious that they would have won with total ease, but they had to let this one unfold without them. And the final event was the varsity 4+. I'm not sure if this race had the worst conditions of the day, but no matter what it was not enjoyable water. On this Sarasota course, there are now 8 racing lanes allowing more boats in a final, for example the V4. The main competitors that had me worried were Rollins, UF, and of course Georgia Tech. To add to the suspense, the start was insane because of the winds. From what I remember though, we had a pretty clean start and stuck most of our boat out front to pass the 500m mark first. After that, we settled out with strong strokes but with a lot of energy used keeping the wind and wake from making us crash to port. Since it was the final race, we tried to open the field as much as possible towards the end, and won by 6 seconds over GT. Overall, we won almost every event we entered and supplied our legacy with one more year.

This is a good building block for next weekend's race: SIRA. This is a huge preview for the end of the year to actually see everyone's speed. From past results, a lot of team are fast but close.

The next few weeks are going to be difficult as we travel every weekend including during finals. Exams will be rescheduled but we will work through it. We will be making our first appearance at the MAAC conference race and we look forward to it. After that, it's all or nothing at Dad Vails.