Trick-Oar-Treat!

Beneath an atmospherically appropriate grey sky, HRCR rowers let their true colors show at an end-of-season Halloween Row.



HRCR's very own Spuyten Duyvil grins wickedly as an NYPD patrol boat cruises by.

Pirate Jenny prepares to board the ship!

Powder blue shell, electric blue coif: complementary or clashing?

Pop 'n Lock

Ah, the rites of spring: new life abounds, spirits lift, warmth returns, docks are refurbished...

One of these things is not like the other you say? Well, my friend, then you have clearly never enjoyed the rejuvenating excersise that is the cleansing, draining, plugging, and re-assembly of a JetFloat dock.

Think large, floatable Legos: our dock is a modular affair, composed of sturdy, buoyant blocks held together by pins that fit neatly into four overlapping tabs on the corner of each block. While theoretically waterproof, enough wear and tear on the Harlem River renders the blocks a tad soggy. Add the effects of flocks of Canadian geese over the course of a year, and you have one honking mess.

So what's a rower to do? Time to bust out scrub brushes, scrapers, giant hex wrench, and plumbers tape! Yes, it's about as much fun as it sounds, but many hands make light work, and after a few chilly mornings, we had the pieces ready to go.

Little did we suspect that the hardest task was ahead of us, for despite the somewhat clunky appearance of the floats and pins, we discovered that assembly demanded considerable precision: the tabs on the corner of each block must be aligned in perfect sequence, and one tab out of place throws off the entire setup, like a giant sudoku puzzle.

Mental and logic tests aside, we were challenged by an unexpected need for brute force to jam the connecting pins through the tab, and then wrench them around with a special key designed just for these pieces. Our kung-fu technique improved quickly as we learned how to aim our kicks just-so, and soon we had the pins popping in with a satisfying click, followed by our Keymasters locking the pieces in place.

Much of this assembly was accomplished on land, but eventually we had figure out how to attach large sections of dock to the ramp that connects to the shoreline, without letting any section float downstream a la Huck Finn. This required an understanding of fluid dynamics that was somewhat lacking in our group of intrepid dockworkers, but somehow we prevailed, and unlike the process of removing the dock for winterizing, no one went for a swim in the still-frigid waters of the Harlem this time.

I hope I speak for the group when I say I have never seen a more beauteous dock in my life; the long stretch of black blocks resting lightly upon the water, warm in the late afternoon sun, yeilded an enormously satisfying feeling of accomplishment. Woe to any geese who dare sully the fruits of our labor!

We stand victorious, and ready to ROW!

We are Guppies!

HRCR was thrilled to receive the first-ever "Guppy Award" in December from the Metropolitan Waterfront Alliance, for being the best new Alliance partner in the past year. We are so proud to have been recognized by MWA who have been so helpful to us as we literally and figuratively navigate the waters of New York City. Special thanks go to outgoing MWA Executive Director Carter Craft, whose wise council and endorsement has been invaluable to us, and we wish him all the best in his future endeavors.

Our fellow honorees included Jessica Lappin, New York City Council Member and Bill Woods, New York City Department of City Planning, who received the Wetsuit MWAward for most helpful bureaucrats, and Dan Petrie, devoted volunteer captain on Big G, who won the Waterlogged MWAward for best volunteer. We’re psyched to be included in such company! While all awardees received a take-home prize, we feel that without a doubt our giant green glass fishing float, complete with intricately-knotted netting, was by far the most distinctively nautical (and conversation-starting) of the handouts. Debate rages as to where we shall enshrine our big glass ball—surely such an artifact deserves a place of honor and high visibility. Look for it and us on the Harlem River this coming spring!

The Big Lift

With our fall season over, and the weather gradually ebbing from calm and balmy to chill and wintry, we knew it was time to wrap up our rowing for the year 2008.

Closing shop for the season is pretty straightforward: You haul the motors off to be winterized, tidy up a bit, batten down whatever hatches happen to be unsecured. Oh, and you disassemble the entire 40-foot-long JetFloat dock, hauling it section by waterlogged section from the water, heaving those onto dry land, and piling them in an out-of-the-way corner of the park.

This is something of a chore. Though the interlocking one-foot-square plastic cubes appear light and buoyant, many were cracked and had taken on water. Then there is the inevitable patina of goose poop smeared across their top surface; a slimy lacquer of algae along their edges; and a bristling of barnacles on the bottom to contend with.

We came prepared, wearing work gloves and bundled in waterproof gear. Good thing, as it was perhaps the coldest, windiest day yet this fall. We’re talking serious frigid gusts, people. Coffee was not merely keeping us awake, it was keeping the blood in our fingers from freezing.

Using a special T-bar tool to “unlock” chunks of dock in rafts two cubes by three cubes big, we floated the sections over to the ramp, hefted them up, and carried them to the edge of the baseball field. It took four or five people to haul one section. Brackish water and muck slicked our hands, arms, bellies, and legs. We started singing that song about Sal the mule and the Erie Canal. That stopped when someone fell in.

Oh yes, you heard me—someone went swimming. He, who shall go unnamed, stepped on a loosened cube and took the plunge into the 50 degree water. He was quickly rescued by our own stalwart rower, Al. Moments later, said swimmer was sitting on terra firma, pouring water out of his shoes. He left for his car soon after (and reported later that day that he was just fine).

We toiled on without him. A couple of rowers from the Fordham crew came down to help. James S., from ESRA, was in charge of draining waterlogged cubes. Spirits were high as we wrapped up before noon—a satisfying few hours of work.

Lest you think we’re crazy, keep in mind the sorry state of the dock this year—the popped pegs that stubbed our toes, the unsecured cubes that sank precariously when stepped on—and imagine what a few good winter squalls would do to it. As we’d like to have a dock come spring, taking it off the water was the only solution.

Which leads one to the obvious conclusion: We’re going to have to put it back if we want to row again. But you can be sure that we’ll not only have more donuts on hand, we’ll wait for a blissfully warm, sunny day on which to do so. And we’ll bring extra clothes in case anyone goes swimming again.

The 1st Annual Bow Ball!

HRCR is thrilled to thank all of the rowers, friends, and crewpies who came out on September 23rd to celebrate the 1st Annual Bow Ball Fundraiser!

Over 75 revellers gathered at Lolita Bar on the Lower East Side and enjoyed Sugar Hill Ale generously donated by Harlem Brewery, Inc. while bidding on a variety of silent auction prizes from African drumming lessons, to fencing classes courtesy of Olympic silver medalist Tim Morehouse, and a Block Island getaway. Former oarsman DJ NaTurner provided musical stylings. Thanks to everyone for making the evening a smashing success!

p.s. Speaking of smashing--it's not a party without a pirate piñata.

The Road To (and from) Learn-To-Row 2008

Would that I could spin a narrative to unite the following non sequiturs. Use your imagination to connect the dots between these behind-the-scenes images from LTR 2008.














It was crawlin' and it stunk…














To be fair, they were at the site before us.













The HRCR Mobile Boathouse: modular dock + Uhaul = office on-the-go.
We multitask, people.

Racks!!!

A quick update from the equipment and storage front:

As most of you know, rowing shells are big (well long really) and finding a place to store them in New York City is a bit of a logistical challenge (someday ask Tracy about the oars in her bedroom or the dock in her basement...). The point is that with many thanks to Turner Construction and Jacobson & Co. Inc., for their generous donation of lumber, time and expertise, HRCR now not only has boats, but has a place to put them!

Our fantastic construction crew poses with the lumber...

And then we all get to work...


Two racks down, one more to go...

The moment of truth...


Hey! Check us out! We have boat racks!