Echo Rowing

Echo Enthusiast

2007-10-09T11:14:11-04:00

Dear Lorna,

I have been having incredible times with my new friend.

One weekend we rowed in the Charles River, once in Glouster Harbor, often I row in our beautiful North River here in Marshfield, and this past weekend Roger and I went rowing in Squam Lake and the next day Lake Winnepesaukee. (I did not realize there was a rowing regatta the day before.) I've now had a bit of experience with 12-15 knot wind and I feel comfortable rowing. What a comfortable and stable craft. I have not had a moment's discomfort.

Sincerely,

Peg and Roger Crawford

We're in Annapolis- Stop by to visit!

2007-10-05T16:32:10-04:00

Echo Rowing at the Annapolis MD Sailboat show, stop in the visit Ted and Lorna Perry they'll be there until Monday, October 8th.

A 2nd place finish!

2007-09-20T14:49:46-04:00

Echo Enthusiast Don Libbey emailed us about the Slocum River Regatta that took place this past weekend. Thanks Don. Congratulations on your 2nd place finish!

While it was dreary and raining on the morning of Saturday, September 15th, over 70 rowers and paddlers braved the elements (the rain did let up for the races) on the Slocum River Estuary's 2+ mile course in the Second Annual Slocum River Regatta in Dartmouth, MA, Southern New England's Fall Rowing & Paddling Festival. (www.slocumregatta.org)

The regatta proceeds benefit the Lloyd Center for the Environment (www.lloydcenter.org). The regatta is well organized, volunteers were plentiful and cheerful (despite the rain), and the launching area on the beach of the Demarest Lloyd State Park is easy on boats and racers.

The races went off as scheduled starting at 9:30 AM with sliding seat single racing shells, followed by double racing shells, recreational shells, whale boats, kayaks, pilot gigs, and fixed seat row boats.

The races included some familiar faces from the Snow Row and Head of the Weir. Friends and family have a pretty good view of the start and finish of the races from the Observation Deck at the Lloyd Center. Lunch and an awards ceremony followed the races.

Despite my less than stellar navigation of the course (including passing the only orange buoy on the course to port instead of starboard (resulting in a time penalty!), I was able to row my yellow Echo to a second place finish in the Recreational Sliding Seat Master's Division (yes, hard to believe I am
50!). I have some pre-race photos of the launch area, which I can try and send, but none of the actual races.

Looking forward to seeing you all at the Last Great Round Gerrish Island Race & Cruise scheduled for the end of the month.

Regards,
Don Libbey

Fine Tuning Your Stroke ~ a checklist

2007-09-06T15:38:55-04:00

Holding the oar handles too tightly. -This is an issue if you are blistering up! If you are seeing blisters the "correct" place for them to show up is in the finger pads beneath the creases. An effective drill in helping to eliminate this issue is to bring your oar handles back to your body using only your thumb and index finger (begin this technique in the catch and continue as you move through the drive portion of the stroke). Hold the handles loosely in your fingers not your fists and you will experience how efficiently and perfectly the oar moves in the oarlock with little effort or exertion.

Hands uneven. If your boat is tippy and your rowing experience is not smooth your hands are uneven. An effective drill to improve arm positioning is to row without legs (knees lightly flexed) and simply focus on keeping your arms level as if they were sliding over a table. Hands remain level during the catch (knees bent over shins, sitting forward in shell with arms extended) and the recovery (oar handles come back into your body approximately 3" apart and level with and just forward of your sternum).

Slouching! Soreness or discomfort may develop in your neck or back. Sit tall and image that there was a string coming up from the crown of your head and someone was pulling up on the line. Your chest will subtly lift and your posture will be greatly improved both in and out of your shell. Good posture means a strong and solid posture without stiffness.

Knees too far apart or too close together. Too far apart encourages slouching, rounding of your spine. Too close together prevents you from coming fully into your catch. Try to prevent yourself from letting your knees splay apart when you're sliding on your seat. Also, it is not recommended to keep your knees held tightly together. Try to row with your knees a fist distance apart

Leaning too far back during the recovery. This may result inlower back stiffness or discomfort. Sit upright in the recovery hinging back slightly from your hips.

Looping hands and pulling with back. Results in a feeling of instability when blades are too high in the air on the recovery and pulling too hard when blades drop too deeply into the water during the drive. As previously mentioned, make sure hands remain level throughout the stroke as if sliding on an even surface and remembering that your stroke is one continuous motion.

Meredith Bay Regatta

2007-09-06T12:54:11-04:00

September 22, 2007

A 2.5 mile Head Race on Lake Winnipesaukee
Meredith, NH

hosted by: Winnipesaukee Rowing Club

Check in time: 7am

Click here for area map

See website for details

Rowing to keep chronic tension headaches away

2007-09-06T12:10:50-04:00

** Although this article is written with rowing machines in mind, it's a wonderful benefit for those who enjoy recreational rowing as well.

Rowing - A Great Exercise For Your Back That Will Help Keep Chronic Tension Headaches Away

by Paul Bacho

An Exercise for Your Mid and Upper Back

If you want to get rid of chronic tension headaches, you must correct poor posture. You do this through retraining your muscles to adapt to proper posture.

How?

Through stretching and exercise. It's particularly important to strengthen your back. Strong back muscles will help hold up your shoulder girdle so you can pull your shoulders back and maintain them in that position all day.

It’s very important to remember that in order to keep tension headaches away, your back, shoulder and chest muscles need to function in the proper position as long as you’re up. For most of us, that’s 16-18 hours a day.

Not only do you have to strengthen these muscles, you have to work on their endurance as well. Obviously, they’re going to need a lot of endurance to hold you upright all day.

Probably the best exercise for strengthening the muscles of your mid and upper back is a seated rowing exercise. You can do this exercise in a number of ways.

If you have a rowing machine, use it. Emphasize the pullback and really stretch out the shoulders and chest as you pull and squeeze your shoulder blades together.

If you don’t have access to a rowing machine, a simple, inexpensive alternative is to get an old inner tube or one of those therapeutic bands that are available in sporting goods stores (they’re like giant rubber bands). Or, you can simply get some old tubing, like the inner tube of an old bicycle tire.

How To Do the Rowing Exercise Properly

Sit on the floor, with your legs out in front of you. Take your tubing, theraband, or old bicycle tube, hook it over your feet and duplicate a rowing motion. Pull back, making sure to keep your shoulders, back and head up, and squeeze your shoulder blades together as you pull the tubing toward you. This is simply a very basic rowing exercise.

To keep things simple, do this exercise until the muscles in your back begin to burn slightly. That burning sensation indicates that you’ve reached the fatigue point of those muscles. It’s almost the same burning sensation you feel about midday or late afternoon at work - the burning sensation that happens right before your tension headaches kick in.

When your muscles begin to burn, quit and note how long you did the exercise.

If, for example, you did the exercise for two minutes before your muscles began to burn, then your goal should be to increase that time by about 15-20 seconds. Each time you do the exercise, try to improve your performance by that amount of time.

When you do this exercise, pull back until you come to an upright position, then pull your arms back as far as you can. Make sure you’re squeezing your shoulder blades in. Don’t do the exercise rapidly, but keep up a good pace.

Your goal is the same as it would be for any other weight lifting or aerobic activity - you want to gradually increase your performance until you reach your target. That target is to be able to do this for 10 minutes three times a week.

Paul Bacho is a certified athletic trainer in Cleveland, Ohio with over 28 years experience treating patients with chronic pain.

He's also co-author of "How to Get Permanent Relief From Chronic Tension Headaches," a holistic program that he's used to help people from all over the world get rid of their tension headaches.

For more information, go to http://www.tensionheadaches.org

Dana Gaines sets course record in ACE

2007-08-31T14:35:39-04:00

Recreational rowing race veteran Dana Gaines set a new race record with his Echo Rowing ACE shell at the 17th annual M.V. Oar and Paddle Assn. Regatta Sunday, August 26th on Sengekontacket Pond with 52 rowers and paddlers in 21 classes.

According to Don Lyons of Martha's Vineyard Times, " To no one's surprise, Dana Gaines of Edgartown was easily the fastest pilot powering his rowing shell from the Little Bridge to the Jaws Bridge in the Sound, then returning in the pond to the starting point, all in 19 minutes and nine seconds - a new race record."

You can view the full story at: Martha's Vineyard Times

Trip to Adirondacks

2007-08-28T16:46:17-04:00

Took the Echo to the Adirondacks for three days, camping at Eighth Lake Campground with great conditions as you can see from this sunset picture.

Yes I did row with the sunset, a magnificent pink, mackerel blanket that shrouded the hill to the west, water silky smooth only the sound of an occasional loon.

Up next morning early even though it was near 40F (and this is in August?).

The next day we were on Forked Lake -

Again perfect conditions. I got hypnotized while paddling with a kayaker who was telling me of flying into lakes in Arizona and Mexico for remote camping and forgot to glance over my shoulder (he neglected to warn me) so ran right into a granite rock sitting a foot out of the water. Hit it hard after a full stroke and was thrown out of the seat and foot straps. Pulling myself together I noticed I was still afloat and after checking found minimal damage. I said a silent prayer to Doug Martin and continued to wander the lake. All is patched over now, a true tribute to the strength of the design and manufacture of the Echo. The perfect boat for this somewhat clutsy rower (I use the red warning flag on the bow to get noticed and keep off flies - no high tech purist rower this guy).

Love the boat.

Bob Auchincloss, Pleasant Valley NY

My Echo shell is longer than my car!

2007-08-22T12:57:09-04:00

Here's a great picture from Echo Enthusiast Bill Phillips - his Echo Rowing shell is longer than the car!

Megunticook Mini-Marathon Regatta

2007-08-03T13:33:17-04:00

The Megunticook Mini-Marathon Regatta will be held on Saturday September 8, 2007 on Megunticook Lake in Camden, Maine. Dubbed “one of the best kept secrets around” by Katy Bonin and “great” by Karen Chenausky in separate Independent Rowing News articles, the Mini-Marathon has become a circled date on the calendars of its many repeat racers.

The start is in waves of 5 – 7 rowers grouped by age and sex approximately 30 seconds apart. The 10 mile race threads its competitors down through the narrow passages of the lake’s coves and islands, leading to the motto of the race “Not just a race . . . an adventure.” The rowing conditions are generally well protected. An alternate launch site gives access to a fully protected 3 mile course.

Contact Robert Perkins at (207) 626-8562 (d), 236-6344

Registration Form

(n), 626-8518 (fax), e-mail bob.perkins@maine.gov