Orcas Island Rowing Offers Beginners’ Classes

A Quad practicing on Cascade Lake

By Martin Taylor

You’ve heard about the phenomenal success the junior rowing club had at the regional competitions at the end of their spring rowing season. Well how would you like to learn to row too?

It won’t make you a teenager again, but it will make you feel younger! Rowing is a fantastic outdoor sport that burns a lot of calories while being relatively low impact.

Orcas Island Rowing (OIR) is offering beginning sculling classes this summer. The first one is being offered over four two hour sessions Tuesday through Friday 7 to 9 a.m. July 5 through 8. The classes are held at the OIR boathouse on Cascade Lake. The classes cost $150 which includes a reduced fee for OIR club membership through the end of August. You can find directions and other information about the club at their web site: www.orcasislandrowing.org. Or contact assistant coach Martin Taylor at martin@orcasdigerati.com or 376-6935.

The kind of rowing being taught uses those super long, super thin rowing shells. If you have seen the recent movie about Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg : “The Social Network” you have seen that kind of rowing boat. Except in that movie they were sweep rowing where each rower only has one oar. The OIR classes will teach sculling where each rower has two oars. Sculling is more a flexible sport in that you can reasonably row on your own in a single scull. Sweep rowing is only possible with a crew of two or more.

OIR will teach more classes after this first one if there is enough demand. So if you can’t make the first class contact Martin and let him know when you can make it. Learning this summer is good timing as there are a lot of fun rowing regattas (races) in the Western Washington in the Fall. The Fall races are longer slower paced races called “Head Races”. If you successfully complete the class there will also be opportunities to row through the rest of the summer.