"Joe Blue" or "Blue Joe" - both sound a little inappropriate ...

... I finished refurbishing my late 80's / early 90's composite Joe Garolofo- built 190 pound weight class single. So after a lot of sanding, fiberglass patching, priming, painting (3 coats of blue on the hull, multiple coats of rustoleum black on the hardware), varnishing (4 coats on the entire cockpit), replacing oarlocks, silicon-ing important joints, retaping and fixing the soft decks (the only part of the boat I did NOT take apart), it's done:




I took it out on the water yesterday and it was a good ride. I wish I had a photo of the hull, as the blue paint job turned out very nicely.

This boat is defintely a "Joe", not a "Joseph" - I'm glad that I gave him a new look.

If you need me, I'll be on the Mississippi ...

Damn ... gotta think up a new name ...

... for my new rowing single.

I took the new boat out yesterday:


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It rowed ... very nicely. Hmmm ...

With this ring ...

... you get callouses when you row.

I've been taking my wedding band (my only piece of jewelry, because beauty like mine needs no adornment) off when I row this year. I think it helps my 'blade work' on my starboard oar. It definitely has cut down on the blisters.

I forgot to put it back on this morning (not a usual rowing day for me) and when I realized it a few hours later, it struck me how naked I felt without it on.

While feeling a little off, it was actually a good feeling - I felt a sense of family and knowing that there is more to my life than myself.



Awesome.

Ok, ignore the angle ...

... and concentrate on the fluid movements.



peace!

Summertime ...

... and the livin' is easy.

I don't know how high the cotton is or if the fish are jumping, but "me and mine" are enjoying the Minnesota summer (it's the one season that makes the state habitable!).

There's been a lot of good stuff going on and I only have time to live it in the first person, so I haven't posted anything in a while.

However, I have been rowing my single sculling shell a lot recently which is ... awesome; but I'm starting to incur some 'wear and tear' damage. (here's a gratuitous shot of the cockpit after a recent wash while I was up at a lake:)

Being the manly, muscular male specimen that I am, sometimes I don't know my own strength. Out on my last row, I actually caused one of the bolts on the foot stretcher to shear off. The foot stretchers are hardware that connect your feet to the boat; the sneakers are attached to the foot stretchers and the foot stretchers are attached to the hull of the boat.




This is the upside down view of the whole kit and kaboodle. It's hard to see, but the bolt on the lower left is missing. I was just going to replace the bolt, but as I examined the structure more closely, I could see a lot of other flaws: The right foot rest is splayed out to much, the sneakers are shoddily attached in the wrong place and only with a single bolt apiece, the wood is cracked and metal parts are starting to rust. Plus the design is poor - it needs another support between the foot rests to reduce the torque on the bolts on the bottom - in particular the very bolt that I broke.

I could feel my father's energy channeling through me as I thought to myself, "This sucks - I can do better".

So ... I'm making a new foot stretcher. I found some nice oak that is slightly thicker that I cut to size and predrilled holes for the attachment. I'm coating that with 4 or 5 layers of marine varnish. I've sanded and repainted the metal components. I'll attach the sneakers correctly this time (after I've washed the sneakers and bought new odor eater insoles!). I am also going to add a small metal support mid foot for the stability issue.

My goal is to end up with a better (and, well, prettier) foot stretcher that is no more heavier than piece of crap that's in there now.


I know ... I'm a geek. But it keeps me out of trouble.


Hmmm ... the seat casters and the tracks for the seat are looking a little grimy and beat up, too ...

Like a (bad) rower to water ...

... I'm back on the Mississippi in the morning.

I'm going out with Bruce and Jim in doubles at 630am, sandwiched between the competitive team and the junior team. I didn't realize how much I missed it.

However, I'm ... sore.

It seems like the flexibility and the core strength that I built up all winter by going to the Y in the dark and frigid Minnesota mornings vanished in the 2 months of relative inactivity since my trip back east. Damn you, exercise physiology!

See you on the water, I'll be the guy in the annoying tshirt that's sweating twice as much as anybody else ...

Well, it was better than Titanic's maiden voyage...

Let's start out by stating that lake water in Minnesota on May 1st is ... chilly, to say the least.

I wasn't going to let that stop my maiden row in my new single. I had the day off and the planets were aligned just right, allowing me a few hours to get out on the water for the first time this year. (Plus, I had an "ok" from the missus.)

I had thought about this all winter. I had scoped out the lakes near my work and had chosen Lake Josephine for a few reasons - a sandy swimming area I could lauch from, it was 2 miles from my work, and my boss has a house right on the lake with a nice dock (for possible launching and storage of my boat!? - all I have to do is ask him). However, it's the wrong shape and locale for optimal rowing. It wasn't long and thin and protected like Lake Hosmer at Craftsbury, it was more round and open. But, hey, we can't all be lucky enough to live in "God's Country" in Vermont.

But I digress.

The air temperature this morning was in the low 50's at best. And it was windy:



Which sucked.

Because when I got to the Lake, it was choppy.



There were 6 to 12 inch waves lapping the shoreline and the chop looked treacherous especially to a newbie like me. Out for the first time of the year. In a 'tippy' boat (only 12 inches at its widest point). With water temperatures in the 40's. Nice conditions for hypothermia.

I was bummed. I had bought this boat half a year ago and trekked it halfway across the country, only to be stopped by some wind. And bone-chilling water.

Fuck.


I lumbered back to my car and called my wife to leave a message that I was just going to the YMCA to slog away on the erg instead and will be back around noon.

As I hung up my iphone, a thought hit me - this is Minnesota, for gosh sakes! There are 9,999 more lakes for me to try. (actually, 11,842 more lakes)

Also, my iphone has google maps and a GPS built in. So, thanks to Jobs and Woz, within minutes I was following the turn by turn directions to Owasso Lake less than a mile away.

I pulled up to the beach area which was in a nice little protected cove. The cove was only about 100m wide but 400m long. It's not a big space - it's not uncommon for one stroke to carry you 10m or more, so I'd only get 20 strokes or so and then I'd have to turn around. But I didn't care. Most importantly, the water was calmer:




Jackpot! The wait was over.

Unfortunately, I was flying solo, so I wasn't able to take any pictures of me rowing. But I did get to row.

And it was fun.

It was a little touchy at first. I haven't rowed on the water in 6 months and haven't been in a single for close to 8 months. So after I almost flipped just getting into the the boat, I was able to take a few tentative strokes and it all came back to me. So far, so good.

So I got cocky and took a couple of good pulls on the oars and ... I almost ended up in the drink.

Humbled again by this sport, I went back to the basics and did some drills and I felt much more stable.

Finally, after about 30 minutes I was able to put together 10 or so good strokes and the boat set up, took up some speed and for a brief few seconds carved a nice straight line over Lake Owasso.

Awesome.

It was better than the feeling of driving a golf ball to within inches of the cup, or hitting a baseball over the center fielder's head or smashing a racquetball into the back of your opponent (I never said I was an good at these sports!).


I'm not ready for Ole Muddy just yet, but give me a few months. I could imagine myself rounding Pike Island and gliding back downstream.

Then I almost ran into a bouy ...

Google Maps says it's only 1159 miles ...

... however, try that with a 27 foot long boat strapped to the top of your car:

(That's my mom and dad at the bow and stern, respectively, by the way. You can click on any photos to make them bigger.)


I finally was able to make the trek back East to pick up my new/used sculling single.

I've been rowing and sculling for the past 4 or 5 years on the Mississippi River out of the Minnesota Boat Club and ... well, I'm addicted.

Or crazy.

Maybe a combination of the two.

I drove 1100 plus miles from Minnesota to Pennsylvania to see my family for Easter; but mainly I had to drop off parts of an indoor sculling machine I sold to a guy in New Jersey and to pick up the shell from another guy in New Jersey, who just happens to know the first guy - small world, huh?.

So, on the Tuesday after Easter, my dad and I braved the rain and traffic in 40 degree weather to make the 140 mile round trip to the Jersey Shore from Philly. The gentleman (a lawyer who started rowing when he went to Penn for undergrad) I bought the boat from was great (well, almost - I'll get to that) and accommodating and everything went fairly smoothly. He rows out of a brand spanking new, multimillion dollar boat house in Ventnor, NJ.

The boat house was an impressive structure that's the home for rowing teams for several high schools and one college, as well as 40 or so private rowers. There were 3 or 4 bays and the boats were stacked 5 or 6 high. Thank god the boat bays were wide enough that I was able to squeeze my CRV into one and load the single on top of my car - out of the pouring rain and almost freezing temperatures! It was such a miserable day, I didn't stick around to take any photos. Plus, it's always a good idea to get the hell out of New Jersey - did ever notice that all the toll roads, bridges and tunnels charge you to get out of Jersey but they don't charge you to get into Jersey? Apropos.

==========================

So, a few days later, my brother and I were getting the boat ready to take the long trip back to Minnesota. We tried to put the cover on the boat (also sold to me (cheap) by the lawyer from Penn) and:



It looked a little funny. The skeg (the black fin looking thing) wasn't lining up with the neat Velcro hole. Also:



It was 10 fucking inches too short!

The bum sold me a cover that didn't fit. And he swore he measured it and promised me that it'd be fine.

After I left a hasty and rather terse message on Ivy League Lawyer's voicemail, we decided to just cut a new hole for the skeg and then duct tape the shit out everything. There is no way that I was going to transport the boat without some sort of covering!

(the guy ended up returning my call - he was apologetic and is willing to refund and/or pay to get the cover altered ... but screw it, I'm returning his shitty cover and I'm going to have a newer more weather-resistant cover custom made. By the way - the cover is needed - look at all the dead bugs stuck to the boat rack. Ewwww)

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Anyway ... The road trip was fun. My brother, Eric, is one helluva great guy and agreed to be my co-pilot on both legs of the journey. He's also the head duct-taper and structural engineer on the whole project - I think we could have driven through an F5 tornado and the boat wouldn't have budged from the top of the car.

It was also fun to stop at divey-motels and eat in greasy-spoon diners along the way. We ate a Texas roadhouse/steakhouse in Elkhart, IN and I felt like something was looking over my shoulder the entire meal:

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The Mississippi River is still fast and high and I don't plan on going out in a single on Ole Muddy until later this summer. I'll still mostly row in a double in the morning for now; but I'm going to be taking my new/used single to a lake near my work one or two days a week for the next few months so we can get acquainted with each other.

But, hopefully, by late summer/early fall, I'll be skimming across the placid waters.


Hmmm ... I still need to re-christen the shell. Maybe "1159 miles"? ...

One of the sweetest sounds ...

When a rowing shell is set-up (ie - balanced properly), when the oars are off the water, when the releases and catches are clean, when the boat is moving at a fairly good speed ... when all of this happens at the same time ... the shell sings.

It's a mild trickling sound and the ever-so-slight feeling eminating from the floor of the shell.

It's the sound of a fluid dynamics phenomenon called cavitation - millions of tiny bubbles forming and collapsing in microseconds as the water rushes past the bottom of the boat due to optimum flow and pressure differentials.

It's the sound of a good row. And this morning, after the chop settled down, our boat was in fine voice.

It might just be the boat ...

I last wrote about having a good row due to being tired and blister-y.

Well, I've since had 2 more good rows and I can't say the blisters were that much of a factor. I must be getting better.

Nah ... it might just be the boat.

A blister in the sun ...

I row and scull on the Mississippi River out of the Minnesota Boat Club on Raspberry Island in Saint Paul about 6 months out of the year. The other six months, "Old Muddy" is more like "old slushy" or "old frosty" due to the interminable winters here.

I've been rowing for about 3 years now and, well ... I'm not that good. Ok, I'm not horrible, but I have a long way to go until I'm skimming effortlessly over the water. I even wear a tshirt to practice that states, "It take alot of courage to row this badly" much to the chagrin of my club team.

This morning, I was rowing with my doubles partner, Bruce, before work and my hands were killing me. Last night, I rowed (badly) with my team in a coxed 4 boat and as a result I literally skinned some of the fingers on my left hand. I left alot DNA in the river.

So I was all taped up this morning and it didn't help - my sweat was causing the bandaids and tape to come off and they soon added to the trash floating south to N.O.LA. I was sore and tired from last night and my hands were tender to say the least.

But ... as a result, I was lightly gripping the oar and I didn't try to overreach and I ended up having a really, really good row. Bruce had a good row too; I know becuase he had a little grin on his face after we docked and put the boat back up in the boathouse.

Bruce is a man of few expressions, but a solid and good guy. The grin made my day and my usually futile attempts at this sport temporarily worthwhile.

So, by being tired and being slightly in pain, I was able to accomplish what my coaches have been saying for the last 3 years - "relax and just row". In other word, stop being anal, stop overthinking and trust your body's instincts.

Cool. See you on the river.