Lakeland Rustlers Rowing Recap - Calgary
Saturday, September 23, the Lakeland College Rowing Team were set for their second race of the season, the first regatta with the full crew racing. The Dino Sprints, hosted by the University of Calgary, were held at the Calgary Rowing Club. The races started at 7:00 am with time trials for small boats. This was cut short by the first of two weather delays that day. Thick fog had descended on the racecourse and stayed around for about two hours.
When racing resumed with a revised schedule, our first boat to hit the water was the Novice Womens Quad. The women were heading to the start believing that the water conditions were good, but with the weather changing so frequently, by the time they got to the start line there was a considerable crosswind. The crosswind continued to build up and the ladies raced heroically for a third place finish behind 2 boats from the University of Calgary. In their titanic race some crews were unable to finish as they had been blown sideways on the course.
The Novice Men's 8+ had already left the dock when the wind really started to get serious and they got to the start line just as the officials suspended racing and closed the docks. The men's team then had to row back to the docks thru the tsunami of the waves. Waiting for the wind to abate it looked like we were done rowing for the day, and that our racing in Calgary was over.
Officials waited another hour and with the wind and waves lessoning they decided to restart races for the second time that day. With the schedule changed, yet again, we finally managed to get the Novice Womens 8+ crew to the start line. This boat finished in second, in a very fast race, and posted the fasted time of the day for a Lakeland College crew. The Novice mens 8+ were granted a rerow and they put in a much better performance in very improved conditions finishing third in their race behind 2 boats from the University of Calgary.
Finally the last boat to race for Lakeland was our Senior Women's Quad who finished 10th out of 13 entries in a very strong field.
When it was all said and done, the Rustler Crew could certainly see they had some work to do, but they can be very proud of their effort and they rowed very well under some exceptional conditions. We would also like to commend the Calgary Dinos Organizing Committee and the Officials on a great job of running the Regatta under some very difficult challenges as all of our rowers got at least 2 races.