Saturday's 25K: Rough Winds, Water and Waves

It's billed as a challenge—a one-of-its-kind 25K marathon on the Hudson River conducted by the River Rowing Association of Nyack.

But Saturday's challenge, which began in Nyack and ended by the George Washington Bridge, was more than the rowers expected. The weather seemed to be perfect, with a bright sunshine producing a sparkle, but rowers faced rough winds, waves and currents.

Still, the RRA crew finished third out of seven boats that went the distance.

Perhaps the most prescient was RRA member and safety boat captain Ron Linhart.

"We have to be ready if anyone has an asthma attack, or a boat is swamped, whatever," Linhart explained. "We don't expect anything to happen, but you've got to be prepared for anything. It's a long run."

Linhart, who's from Congers, was joined on his 36-foot twin-engine "One Sea" by his wife, Diane, and young Celeste Klose. Celeste Klose, daughter of Nyack resident and chair of the village's planning board Peter Klose, was rooting "for my daddy" and Tom Chyla, Joe Devoe and club president Ivan Rudolph-Shabinsky, all on the home quad.

Linhart's "One Sea" served as the lead for six safety boats spread down the Hudson.

Most of the boats had to be brought ashore at the Alpine Boat Basin, about four miles short of the official termination point. Some, however—like the home club's Rebecca Bellamonte, in an all women's quad—wanted an opportunity to finish the course.

"Looking back, maybe for those open water boats which are built to handle the water [and] who wanted to finish, maybe we should let them go for it," noted Rudolph-Shabinsky.

Yet there was no denying that the river turned rougher than envisioned, with a shifting wind that helped to take some boats out toward the middle of the river where there is a stronger current and more traffic. There were occasional 3-foot waves toward Alpine, NJ, and one singles sculler—apparently determined to get to Englewood—finally turned back to shore, helped by one of the safety boats on patrol.

(A Piermont Fire Department boat also patrolled but, thankfully, was not called into action).

Dennis Mallace, the father of event organizer J.D. Mallace, was asked to provide a one-word description of the conditions everyone confronted. After a slight pause, Mallace grinned and said, "Unrowable."

One open ocean veteran, Jeff Nelson, agreed, but enjoyed the challenge.

"It was awesome," Nelson said. "I've done two open ocean races and this was tougher. Here the waves were coming at you so fast you didn't have time to adjust."

Brendan McEwan and Nate Kelly, representing the victorious Maritime Rowing Club of Norwalk, CT, had their own difficulties.

"It was a little rough out there, a little choppy," they said. "We had to bail out eight different times."

"It was all a little crazy, several boats swamped included ourselves," commented the RRA's Tom Chyla. The RRA boat not only stopped several times to bail, but it also stopped to help another boat that had swamped get to shore, partly explaining the third-place finish.

"Sure, most wanted to finish," Rudolph-Shabinsky added. "But a few were happy to get out, taken out of the water."

The Maritime tandem of McEwan and Kelly, recent college graduates, said they would be back for next year's 3rd annual event, but only after giving the rough go some deeper thought.

"Ten minutes ago if you had asked us, we might have said something different," they said.

One boat that stood its ground against safety concerns was a championship 8 representing the Hudson River Rowing club out of Poughkeepsie.

"When we found out how close we were to the finish and they wanted us not to finish, we told them we'd like to keep going," said Eugene Ruoff. "They shrugged and we finished—but it took a little longer than we expected. It was grueling but exciting."

Exciting from start to finish, even if the finish was not to everyone's total liking.

Ship to shore

• Anthony Reino, competing with Paul Pugliese out of the Greenwich Water Club, was a U.S. Olympic swimmer for the boycotted 1980 Games. He once swam from the TZ Bridge to the GW Bridge and he said, "This was harder, the conditions were much harder." His coach was John Collins of the Larchmont-based Badger Swim Club, and he still represents the Badgers at Masters meets.
• A picnic was staged at the Englewood Boat Basin, where real-life war stories were rehashed and abundant food and drink was made available.
• One interesting boat was an old-style water taxi based in Weehawken, NJ. "It started out rough and got worse," offered David Shehigian, its captain.
• Mark Dinges, on the Poughkeepsie boat with Ruoff, said they would have turned in a better time, but "we had to use nearly an hour to bail out."
• Linhart's daughter Rebecca operated a safety/shuttle boat and is prepping, with her dad, for their first fall race on Oct. 17, the Head of the Passaic in Rutherford, NJ.
• Another safety boat was manned voluntarily by Clarkstown crew team coach Khris Aranvitis, with his dog in the stern properly fitted with a life jacket.