Want To Row? Test the Waters.

By Raymond M. Lane
Special to The Washington Post
Friday, July 6, 2007

"The idea of rowing one of these elegant little boats has always appealed to me," Kimberly Nugent, 44, of Hyattsville says midway through her first week of rowing lessons with the Washington Rowing School.

Nugent, a part-time legal secretary, works two eight-foot oars into the water almost without a splash, slowly gliding in a single-seat training shell on the pancake-flat Anacostia River near the Bladensburg Waterfront Park marina in Prince George's County.

"It looks so intriguing from shore," she says. "I always wanted to try it."

In the water nearby are fellow students Susan Dorn, 50, of University Park, a managing partner in a D.C. law firm, and my daughter, Mary, 17. After just three evening sessions, each about 90 minutes, the three women have learned enough sculling to "drive backwards" all the way to the bridge carrying the Baltimore-Washington Parkway across the river, then back again -- a two-mile run.

The 18-foot training sculls are made of lightweight plastic and, at 45 pounds, are not much heavier than two cases of beer. The seats are on small rollers that glide back and forth along tracks as the boats slice silently through the river at about 10 mph.

"It's like flying," says Dorn, who tried unsuccessfully to get her 15-year-old daughter interested in rowing and then decided to try it herself.

"Beginners are usually surprised at how quickly they can get the basics down," says instructor Cynthia Cole, 50, who putt-putts alongside the newly minted rowers in a small motorboat, using a megaphone to correct mistakes and encourage good technique.

Egrets prowl the shore as the women work their way up and down the river. Ducks and their fuzzy chicks flit nearby. Two herons the size of lawn chairs stand stock still. A fox appears and disappears in an instant. Beer cans and soda bottles drift by and plunk against the shells.

"The Anacostia is a great learning river because it's flat and quiet," Cole says. "No jet skis or motorboats making waves like down at Georgetown."

Cole took up the sport in 1975 in college. After 12 years as an economist with Communications Satellite Corp. in the District, she turned to rowing and teaching full time, serving as president of the Potomac Boat Club from 1995 to 2002 and coaching area teams, most recently as head coach for the crew team at Walter Johnson High School in Bethesda. She founded Washington Rowing School last year, with seven boats and boundless enthusiasm.

"Beginners are always afraid about falling off," Cole says. "But rowing is a sport that has so much going for it. A great workout, being outdoors on the water and learning -- maybe losing one's self, really -- in a kind of meditative dance of breathing, balance, timing and motion.

"I do this instead of going to a psychiatrist," Cole says with a laugh. "It's a kind of Zen for body and mind."

She's not alone, says Rick Fitzgerald, editor of Physics Today magazine and president of the Capital Rowing Club, the area's largest, which is based on the Anacostia downstream by the Navy Yard and Marine Barracks.

"There are hundreds of adults who row regularly in the metropolitan area today," says Fitzgerald, who started rowing on a lark as a college student in 1990. "Throw in the high school and college crew teams, and there probably are thousands."

In June, when Fitzgerald's club hosted a "Learn to Row" open house, a free 90-minute introduction that included "water time" on 60-foot, eight-seat training barges, "we had 240 people come by who had never been on a boat before," he says. "Now a bunch of them are taking beginners lessons."

Brett Johnson, communications director of New Jersey-based USRowing, a national organization that oversees safety and training protocols and teacher accreditation, organizes competitions and assembles the U.S. Olympic rowing teams, says as many as 75,000 adults and college and high school students row regularly.

"There are a thousand rowing clubs nationally," Johnson says. "People come in off the street, get acquainted with the sport and, the next thing you know, their lives have been changed . . . as they discover the joy of rowing."

By the end of Cole's week-long course, only one student has fallen into the river -- a tip-over while trying one of Cole's racing boats. Nugent says she found rowing "very relaxing, just you out on the water," and wants to continue.

Mary Lane says she plans to join Cole's weekend program on big eight-seat racers, and Dorn says she'll have to wait until her kids return to school in the fall before continuing with a girlfriend she hopes will join her.

"But I'm hooked," Dorn says. "It doesn't seem to be a sport; it's maybe a way of life."

WASHINGTON ROWING SCHOOL On the Anacostia River at the Bladensburg Waterfront Park marina, 4601 Annapolis Rd., Bladensburg. Week-long course, $160. 202-344-0886. E-mailinfo@washingtonrowingschool.com.http://www.washingtonrowingschool.com.

USROWING 800-314-4769.http://www.usrowing.org.

Other rowing organizations in the area include:

ALEXANDRIA COMMUNITY ROWINGhttp://www.rowalexandria.com.

ANACOSTIA COMMUNITY BOATHOUSE ASSOCIATION 202-548-0038.http://www.anacostiaboathouse.org.

ANNAPOLIS ROWING CLUBhttp://www.annapolisrowingclub.com.

BALTIMORE ROWING CLUB 410-355-5649.http://www.baltimorerowing.org.

CAPITAL ROWING CLUB 202-289-6666.http://www.capitalrowing.org.

DC STROKES ROWING CLUBhttp://www.dcstrokes.org.

THOMPSON BOAT CENTER 202-333-9543.http://www.thompsonboatcenter.com.

OCCOQUAN BOAT CLUBhttp://www.rowobc.org.

POTOMAC BOAT CLUB 202-347-6084.http://www.potomacboatclub.org.