Marin Rowing enjoys historic performance at Henley Masters Regatta

Opportunities to compete against the top boats in the world over the past couple of years have been few and far between for athletes on the Marin Rowing Association masters teams.

Earlier this month, the Greenbrae-based club sent seven entries to the Henley Masters Regatta in Henley-on-Thames in England and returned with an unprecedented haul of gold medals.

“Our men and women really took the world by storm. It was breathtaking,” Marin Rowing Association president Josh Rafner said. “To have four gold medals for our masters men and women is absolutely an historic achievement.”

The women took first in both the D8+ and E4+ categories – D for an average age group of 50-54 and E for ages 55-59; plus signifying the presence of a coxswain – while the men were first in both the D8+ and E8+ categories. The women’s E8+ boat finished in second place.

“Marin’s starts were blistering fast, no boat could have made up the ground,” Rafner said. “That’s pretty epic. That’s just relentless practice that you can work in such a perfect way to have a fast start.”

Unlike most high-level regattas that feature five to eight boats competing simultaneously, the Henley is all about match racing – two boats going head to head with the winner advancing to the next round of competition until only one boat remains.

“It really comes down to being a mental game,” coxswain Adrian Andrews said. “Establishing control of a race early is even more paramount.”

To that end, Andrews – who was the coxswain on both gold-medal men’s boats – and his teammates worked relentlessly on getting their starts down to perfection.

“That first stroke is really key – being a silent first stroke that is high torque and really clean sets up your next three, four, five strokes very much,” Andrews said. “We put a lot of emphasis on practicing that back here and also when we got there.

“Our primary focus is getting up to speed and into speed efficiently so we can start getting big strokes as soon as possible.”

While practicing before the regatta began, Andrews borrowed a boater’s hat from D8+ teammate Ben King. The hat became somewhat of a good-luck charm but also helped Andrews identify the moment when the team had perfected its start technique.

“I wore it for that practice and I asked Ben if I could wear it for that first race,” Andrews said. “It’s kind of a statement piece. … It’s proper Henley gear.”

The 8+ boat won its first race with the hat but the 4+ boat was not successful – Andrews had to lie down inside the boat and therefore couldn’t wear headgear. The hat was back on for the next 8+ race – another victory – and a superstition was born.

“From that point on I just had to wear the hat,” Andrews said. “It’s got some big, big energy in it.”

That energy was displayed while the team was preparing for key races on that Saturday – when both the semifinals and the final were to be contested. The team started so well in warmups that the hat went flying off Andrews’ head and into the water.

“If you hit the start like that, that hat showed us the energy we had,” Andrews said.

Beyond getting off to blistering starts, the other key to victory that both the men’s and women’s team identified was all the work they put in despite the limitations of living through a pandemic. Having eight rowers and a coxswain on the same boat was simply not permitted during social distancing so each athlete had to train individually in a single.

“The single is a great coach because it’s no one else’s fault,” women’s team captain Jenn Panko said. “Whatever is going on is on you.

“Our whole team had to do that for a two-year period because of COVID.”

In a sport where timing and synchronization is key, the athletes had to maintain their level of fitness and improve their individual techniques without the benefit of working in unison to push the same boat through the water. The main difference between single – or sculling – and a multi-person boat – sweeping – is that sculling requires two oars.

“It’s a little bit different and it requires a different skill set,” Panko said. “It was an advantage for us to have everyone learn how to scull better.”