Portland club rows racing shell to Astoria

August 30, 2007

Members of the Oregon Rowing Unlimited rowing club took off Saturday morning from Cathlamet on the last leg of their first trip from Portland to Astoria.

In what may become an annual event, members of Oregon Rowing Unlimited, a rowing club, rowed a 62-foot racing shell from Scappoose to Astoria last week.

The club started Thursday in Scappoose and went to Prescott Beach below Rainier; on Friday, they came from Prescott Beach to Cathlamet, and Saturday, 7:30 a.m., they left the Elochoman Slough Marina and traversed the Columbia estuary to Astoria.

The event was based on an activity very popular with European rowing clubs—a “wandern tour.”

“European clubs will race down a river to its mouth,” said club member Mike Fritron.

The club planned their event to be a fun, non-competitive activity that would also analyze the feasibility of such a trip.

The lightweight racing shells have low freeboard which isn’t good in rough water.

“We got up early in the morning when the winds are calm and the water isn’t rough,” he said.

Two eight-person teams powered the shell; they can hit 12 miles per hour on the river, they said.

Steve Gibons of Scappoose Bay Kayaking provided a support boat and guide service through the Columbia’s currents and channels.

Traveling with them were family members, a trailer full of smaller rowing craft, a gourmet chef and a massage therapist.

The group hopes the trip will become a large, annual event.

The club is open to male and female members of all ages, members said. It includes senior citizens and high school age youth, and two female members were chosen for US Olympic teams. One, Claudia Schneider, competed in the 1976 Olympics when women first competed in rowing; Kristy Laserlind was invited to be on the 1980 team, but the United States boycotted the Olympics that year.

Laserlind serves as the club’s coach.

Club members come to their dock at Oakes Park, south Portland, at 5:45 a.m. for their work out. They stretch, do Pilates exercise, and row.

“Rowing is a complete exercise,” Laserlind said. “You start the movement with the feet, then the legs, back, abs, shoulders, chest and arm and hands. It doesn’t pound the body like running does.”

Even though the club had two teams to split the day’s work, all rowers had blisters and worn skin on their hands.

“You can’t wear gloves,” Laserlind explained. “You have to have delicate feel to roll the blade of the oar at the end of a stroke.”

Collegiate rowing is a sport wide open to women, Laserlind and other club members said. There are more scholarships available than there are women rowers, they said.

The group said they enjoyed their stay at the Elochoman Slough Marina but found docking a problem.

“At home, we have a very low dock and can get the shell up close enough to step in,” Laserlind said. “Here the docks are too high for that.”

Instead, shortly before low tide Saturday morning, the rowers picked their shell up and carried over the riprap and down the beach, a mix of sand and clay, to the water’s edge.

The rowers waded through milfoil and slid into the shell. After cleaning off their feet, they took off across the Cathlamet Channel and soon were soon almost invisible along the lower end of Puget Island.