By Kassandra Nevarez, Marketing and Communications Assistant
The Head Of The Schuylkill Regatta (HOSR) is also known as “Philadelphia’s Fall Festival Of Rowing”. It hosts more than 8,000 competitors across its youth, adaptive and adult categories. The event is huge and draws about 30,000 spectators to the banks of the Schuylkill River. The regatta’s spirit of inclusion has grown year after year; it offers opportunities for all ages, levels, and abilities. The events range from singles to eights racing, for high school freshmen to athletes age 60 and older, and for youth novices to seasoned college rowers. Athletes race from the head of the Schuylkill River to Boathouse Row, a 4km/2.5mi race.
This year, we proudly attended this regatta with athletes from our own youth, adaptive and adult programs. We raced in fifteen events! Our Masters, Adaptive and Youth teams brought their best to the racecourse and represented Row New York wonderfully.
Our Masters team raced in the Inclusion 2x, Women’s Master 4+, Mens Masters 4+, and Men’s Masters 8+. Our Adaptive team raced in the Inclusion 2x and our Youth team raced in the Men’s JV 1x , Men’s Varsity 4+, Women’s Varsity 4+, Women’s JV 4+, Men’s Varsity 8+, Women’s Varsity 8+, Men’s JV 8+, Women’s JV 8+.
All boats showed improvement in tough conditions and we looked like the best version of practice. We also were able to bring the Novice and Middle schoolers to watch and help out with trailer stuff! Very glad to be drying off this week.
From Denise Aquino, our Director of Community Rowing:
Marianne and William rowed in the Legs Trunk Arms Inclusion 2x . The inclusion events entail one adaptive and one masters rower. This is the first time our community programs raced two programs in the same boat. Marianne has been rowing for our Competitive Masters team in Manhattan for many years. While Marianne steered, William sat in the stroke seat and set the pace for the rate at which they rowed. She laughed saying, “William was in race mode the second we pushed off the dock! I was like, ‘the race hasn’t started yet!'” The boat got the silver medal behind Philadelphia Adaptive Rowing as well as the gold medal for the age category in this event.
For our Trunk Arms 2x, Katherine rowed in stroke seat and Maria in bow seat. It was Katherine’s first headrace and Maria’s 4th race at Head of the Schuylkill. With Maria’s experience in the course and her steering, the 2x powered down the course and beat their goal time by 6 minutes! As the “cherry on top”, the strong ladies deservedly won a gold medal in their event. After her race, Katherine said, “I’m tired but it was a good, good race. Can’t wait to do it again next year!”
Many thanks to Christopher Blackwell, the HOSR staff, the RNY Adaptive coaching staff, volunteers, parents, and supporters.
