Presenting senior men's heavyweight rower Mitch Stein's perspective on the Quakers' trip to the San Diego Crew Classic. The team packed up its boats on a cross-country bus and...well I'll let Mitch explain the rest...
Friday, April 5, 8:32 PM San Diego, California
The team has settled back into our hotel rooms after a full day of preparing for our race in the morning. However, the real preparations for this trip began in September when our coach put the San Diego Crew Classic on the table as a potential reward for a strong fall performance. We would have to reach some markers at the Head of the Charles or Princeton Chase in October that we had been very far from in recent memory. After having our best finishes at the two regattas in over a decade, Coach Myhr was true to his word and signed us up for the storied west coast regatta in April. Thanks to the generous support of alum John Chatzky ’77, the cross-country trip for the varsity 8 was made possible.
The more immediate preparations began a week ago when we had to load our 8-man Filippi shell (the Ted Nash) and our 8 blades onto the SJU trailer that was traveling to Sane Diego. This trailer made the trek across the country during the week while we continued training and picking up boat speed at home on the Schuylkill. On Thursday at 2:40 pm the 11 of us (8 rowers, 1 coxswain, and 2 coaches) took off in coat and tie for the Philadelphia airport. We encountered the usual sideways looks and interesting conversations we generate whenever we travel as a group: “So you say you guys are on the Penn rolling team?” or “You look like a bunch of preppy yuppies.” We took it all in stride.
After the standard delays encountered at the illustrious Philadelphia airport and 5 hours on the plane, we finally touched down in San Diego around 10 o’clock local time. After dropping our things off at our hotel, we dashed to the closest In & Out and filled up on all things “animal-style” at the classic west coast burger joint. Due to our normal daily wake-up time of 6 am for practice back home, sleeping in with the time change was tough. We were all off to the racecourse by 8:30 and after finding the course, finding our trailer, unloading and re-rigging the Nash (which had luckily made it across the country safe and sound), we finally made our way to the beaches of Mission bay to take our first strokes in Pacific waters by 10 am.
Unlike all venues on the east coast where we launch into our boats off of docks, here in San Diego crews must wade out into the water and climb in once it’s deep enough. In spite the new experience of water-launching and the mess of crews coming in and out of the shore, we got off on our warm up. It was the first time on the course for everyone in the boat so the goal of this practice was just to shake off the trip and get familiar with the 2000 meter course. After starting in Sea World, the race takes a straight shot through Mission Bay. The trickiest part is the variable wind and tide currents that come out of two causeways next to the course: one in the first 300 meters and one just after the 1000 meter mark. Staying calm and handling variable conditions will be crucial in the weekend’s racing.
After a quality breakfast at the broken yolk, a solid nap, and another quick swing row of the course in the afternoon, we made our way to dinner at 6:30 with the generous alum that made the whole trip possible, John Chatzky. He shared some great stories about his time with Penn Crew in the '70s and why it is so important to stay involved with the team to this day. The team took the words of wisdom and inspiration from the former champion with us back to our rooms for the night.
Next up: we race Stanford and Oregon State in the morning at 9 am. The results of the morning race determine lanes for the final on Sunday morning.
