Hard to believe there are just 12 days left in our high school rowing season. I hope that a good number of you will continue on with Summer and Fall rowing so that when I see you again in November, you will have gained that much more experience, speed and ability! Let’s do our very best to make these remaining days together as productive as we can to build our highest possible speed!! We’re almost there!

We have City Champs this Saturday. I will send out something about that tomorrow. Following that, we will practice on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday as normal. Thursday morning, we will load the boats for CSSRA in St. Catharines. Following boat loading, we will be heading down to St. Catharines on the bus for the day. I will get more details on this from Ms. Craven. We will be leaving Hamilton at 9am, arriving at Henley Island at 10. We will rig all the boats and then be ready when the course opens for practice at noon. Each crew will be scheduled in their boat for one loop of the course. When you are out there, do not linger because others are waiting to row with you. This will go until 3PM, when we will head back to Hamilton. Go home, have supper and get a good night’s sleep because it all starts the next day!

CSSRA is much like Welland, except it’s three days long. Some of us will row on Friday. Some may not row until Saturday. And hopefully a number of us will be rowing on Sunday. Events that require a heat, a semi and a final will race heats on Friday, Semis on Saturday and Finals on Sunday. Events that do not require a semi will row the heat on Saturday and the final on Sunday. Events that are straight finals are on Sunday only. You will race a maximum of two races in a day.

Weigh ins happen much like they did in Welland, with a window of about 2-3 hours in the morning. All crews in weight class events have to weigh in, as do all coxswains, no matter which category they are in. I will let you know times.

I will be scheduling certain crews for a morning paddle in St. Catharines before racing. I will let you know who and when. When doing this, I take into account when your races are….so if you aren’t racing until 2PM on that day, I’m not going to bring you to the course at 6:30AM for a paddle! Many crews who are staying in St. Catharines have the option of going back to their hotel after a morning paddle. We do not (unless you are staying over). There is also evening practice after racing, so I may take the option of sending a crew out for a loop or two of the course following racing on each of the days. Again, I will let you know when I see the draw.