Many have come to know San Pedro as some of the best rowing water in all of California, protected, flat, and miles of it!  However it seems whenever we try to host our 5000 kilometer head race mother nature has other plans.  This last weekend our oarsmen faced huge waves, torrential downpour, and wind that literally picked up and threw our finish line tent forcing us to shorten the length to about 2700 meters!  It mattered little to our Trojans as they rowed on to impressive finishes in all of their events.

In our first event of the day our Novice B boat raced against two Orange Coast, One UCI, and Two UCLA Boats and finished an impressive 3rd behind OCC’s top boats and ahead of both of our rival UCLA’s and UCI’s boats.  Nice Job Gents! The lineup – Cox: Vanessa Pursel, Stroke: Martin Seifrid, 7: Clinton Suh 6: Ryan Delijani, 5: Erick Sanabria, 4: Uzi Chaudhry, 3: Constantine Greanias, 2: Charles Toh, Bow: Kevin Delijani.

The next event we raced was our Novice A boat coming off of an impressive race at the Newport Autumn Rowing Festival they lined up against Orange Coast, UCLA, UCSB, UCI, and Long Beach State.  Off the line the expereinced Orange Coast crew jumped into the lead and battled head to head with our Novice Squad for the majority of the race  leaving all other contenders in their wake.  Eventually the experienced crew from Orange Coast prevailed and took the lead in the last 500 meters to win the race.  It was enough to scare the competitors and earn the respect of all the coaches on my launch.  Lineup – Cox: Isabelle Wuilloud, Stroke: Ran Woodfin, 7: Brandin Chang, 6: Carter Crowe, 5: Scott Hunter, 4: Peter Cho, 3: Felipe Saltz, 2: Mark Conrad, Bow: Robin Cho

Finally our Varsity four came up to race against UCLA and UCI, unfortunately OCC and UCSB had to drop out at the last second and did not race.  After an upsetting performance at Newport our varsity came out strong gaining the lead early on and led the whole way back home putting themselves 23 seconds ahead of UCLA with UCI right behind!  Extremely impressive fight gentlemen way to defend out home and show the novices how its done! Lineup - Cox: Megan Pursel, Stroke: Sam Bush-Joseph, 3: Zachary Kobos, 2: Alec Wiggin, Bow: Dan Slutsky.

The Trojan’s competed in their first official race of the season this past weekend at Newport Beach’s Aquatic Center.  The Trojan Novice squad had an impressive finish coming in 5th behind only Cal and OCC’s Top Boats.  Way to start the year Gentlemen!  The varsity competed with a former rower David Lowenstein so as to fill out their Eight for the event and raced extremely well.  Afterward our Varsity Oarsmen hopped straight into a four and went right back to the starting line where they encountered the torrential downpour that created rowing conditions worse than they ever get to see at our wonderful protected San Pedro.  To top it off they had their “waterproof” cox-box die from getting too wet and had to race with no rate, and no coxswain!  They still did their best and raced with Trojan pride.

After the racing ended we led our alumni across the bay to Park Newport to feast on burgers, hot dogs, potato salad and the likes overlooking the bay and watching the last of the events attendees pull out their trailers for the drive home.  All in all, a successful first day of racing despite the conditions and a great way to reinvigorate our athletes for the rest of the fall.