FAST TIMES AT LARC

It has been a heavy medal year for the men.

Our club is blazing. We have many crews, men and women, rowing sweep boats and sculls, racing their heads off.  

Let’s take our racing men, for instance. Back in April, LARC’s Matt Schaeffer—who, by the way, learned to scull at UCLA, then got thrown in a sweep boat two years ago at LARC—rowed with doubles partner Nick Babikian in the Olympic Trials in Sarasota, Florida.  The duo took third place in the finals, but to them it was a total win. “Our biggest goal was to make the finals,” Schaeffer says, “so gold for us was simply winning the repechage and beating CRI (Community Rowing) which put us in the finals. Being in the finals was just so cool, surrounded by people who would be going on to the Olympics.”  The top finishers of each event went on to Rio; Schaeffer set his sights on the Head of the Charles (HOCR), but didn’t get a bid this year. Babikian scored a gig at Goldman Sachs that took him to Houston. “He moved, we sold our double, and he’s gone!” Schaeffer says. “He is a great training partner.” The pair were putting in double-, sometimes triple-day workouts, on the water together in both singles and the double. “We really pushed each other.” Next up for Matt, fall head races and the Long Beach Christmas Regatta.  

Dave Frick is a retired database programmer for [Move Inc., the company that develops and manages the Realtor.com website for ] the National Association of Realtors, where he managed all the listings; as a former member of the Army Reserves, he retired at 60. Now 62, he’s got three children and five grandchildren. And is enjoying every minute of his time. 

He races all year long, this year starting with the Christmas Regatta [and indoor Beach Sprints in Long Beach,  nope, I was sick this year and missed it] then the San Diego Crew Classic where he, Mark May and Steve Krum all raced with [UC  the University of San Diego] Alumni boat—and won [the Founder’s Cup] for the second time.  “It was the best race of my life,“ Frick says.  “We were in the lead, then Marin took it over, and we kept our cool. Our cox called for us to bring it up and we took back the lead, but by just that much! It’s the race I replay in my mind many times before I go to sleep.”

And Frick has been racing in doubles and singles events with Mike McKay: “We raced in the Summer Solstice in Long Beach and we each got gold in our single events (different age categories), and third in our doubles race. Then we did the Gold Rush (Lake Natoma, Sacramento State Aquatic Center) in doubles and singles, where we placed second in our double and Mike [and I each got gold in our respective singles races got gold in the single].”  The pair went to Mike’s hometown of Wyandotte, Michigan (south of Detroit) for a big race there [where they both won gold again in their single races], then on to the Masters’ Nationals in Worchester, Massachusetts in July, where they got bronze in the straight four (rowed with Wyandotte guys) and Frick got a bronze in his single, and McKay a silver in his.  

Next for Frick is the Head of the Charles, where he will race [with Mark May] in the [UCSD USD] Alumni 8+ on Saturday and a quad in the Director’s Challenge on Sunday.  “I just want to do this for as long as I can,” he says. “Before the back or something else goes. I love that I was doing this at age 22, and still am. I love the single, especially, because you can do your own thing, and I enjoy the solitude, watching the sun come up all on my own.  I feel very lucky.”  

You could say the same about strength trainer Mike McKay, who also trains veterans in the volunteer “Heroes Movement” he created.  He and Dave Frick did many doubles and singles events together, but a memorable moment of this year might have been the Gold Rush Regatta, where McKay raced against women’s Olympic Silver medalist Gevvie Stone.  He was of course routing for her during the turbulent singles quarterfinals in Rio: “I was very nervous.” [Peg: please check w/Mike on this. I don’t think it was Stone, I think it was the Brazilian Olympic sculler]

Mike got lots of medals this year, although he says he was better prepared last year: “Rowing is all about putting in your time. But it’s all good.” He got silver at Summer Solstice, Southwest Regionals and Masters Nationals in his single, but the highlight for this year, he says: “Winning the quad at Masters’ Nationals (in July). Everything just clicked in that race. It was a great race.”

McKay has been rowing since 1991; he learned at Wyandotte Boat Club and at Mount Carmel in 7th grade.  Usually when training for a race he puts in 10 workouts a week (“That’s when you win races!”); this year he had an overuse back injury, so cut back to three to four times a week.  When asked what he loves about rowing, McKay is frank: “I don’t really like practicing, except as a means to an end. I like to race,” he says. “I like getting to the line, blasting off and I love the dog fight at the end. The start and the finish lines. The bodies.  I love sprints the best.”

Will he be racing the head of the Charles?  “I’d rather sit in traffic than do a head race.”

Call to Action: I know there are lots of fast women and men in our club, including Ryan Schroeder who rowed with University of Washington varsity men and got a gold in World Championships! As you send me your results, I’ll write them up!  Email me at: [email protected] .

The When & If Does It

On the morning of Saturday, July 16, longtime LARC member Bayard Storey, 56, and his brother John, 54, waited in the lovely, and for the moment, calm waters off the coast of Gloucester, MA, to start the Blackburn Challenge, a 21-mile open water race around Cape Ann.

Their boat: The When & If, a sliding seat open water touring boat Bayard built, shares the name of a famous Alden schooner General George Patton had commissioned. Patton died before his schooner was finished. Luckily, Bayard did not; but chose the name “because people kept asking me if I’d ever finish it.”

“I love rowing in the Marina,” Storey says, “but constantly going in circles gets dizzying. So, I wanted to go out into the [Santa Monica] Bay.” He first set out to buy an ocean-ready rowing boat from a guy in Santa Barbara but he wouldn’t sell it. "He told me I should, and could, build my own. So, like an idiot, I did. I started by watching YouTube videos," says Storey, four years later it was being finished in my driveway."

The completed boat “turned out to be not as fast I had hoped.” So Bayard made plans to race with a canoe builder from Big Bear who was building, what hoped to be, a faster one, “kind of a sports car to my station wagon." It turned out that the sports car to his station wagon would not be ready in time, so Bayard was stuck with the When and If. “The benefit of the When & If is that it could make it through a small hurricane," and during the previous years’ Blackburn Challenge, there were plenty of those.

Bayard and John teamed up for the When and If's maiden race. John Storey is an ultra-marathoner who runs 100+ mile races. John also lived across country in Tennessee, so the boat hitched a ride from Orange County to Club Nationals in Ohio, and drove with Bayard and John up to Gloucester, MA . "Just getting the boat to the race (and back!) was an unbelievable logistical challenge.”

The brothers understood the Blackburn Challenge was not going to be a big event in their boat category. While a total of about 300 boats, including men’s and women’s kayaks, single and double outrigger canoes as well as other sliding seat boats were in the contest, only three boats were touring doubles like theirs. Still, there were serious challengers, "our main competitors were two strong guys in a $14,000 boat who had won the past two years."

Once the race was on, the Storey bothers blew past the previous winners at the 2-mile mark and went on to beat them by a full 33 minutes! Their total time was an incredible 3:00:56. “We were shocked by how fast we went, especially given the boat and the heavy chop we had the last 25 minutes...We had to use the bailer a lot coming into the harbor,” Bayard recalls. As to the brother's performance, “while I had the most strength between the two of us, John...brought his endurance. We were a good match.”

As satisfying as it was to win their category, the siblings were surprised to find they even beat a Leo Coastal single representing the US at the Coastal Worlds.

​Storey is casual about his multi-year journey to this extraordinary win, but does mention the free massage he needed at the end of the grueling 21 mile contest. “It was a tough race, but I’d do it again. The town is beautiful, so for me, it was a vacation with a side of racing.”

For complete details of the race, go to blackburnchallenge.com.