Many rowing clubs and schools are not on the water at this time of year, depending on their region and climate. Yes, rowers are probably focusing on cross training, erg races and weights, but how should organizations use downtime? The Safety Committee suggests joining forces with other clubs in the area.

What is a safety consortium and why do we need one?

For organizations that share a body of water with other rowing groups, schools or clubs, helping each other stay safe works to everyone’s advantage. With the tremendous growth in the sport, more and more boats are appearing, often with untrained coxswains and novice coaches and launch drivers.

In Washington D.C., Thompson’s Boat Center brought all the regional coaches and club administrators together in the spring of 1998. The clubs formed the Potomac River Safety Committee. Individuals were appointed to represent their organization (in most cases it was the head coach or racing chair). The clubs that shared the upper Potomac decided to work together more efficiently.

The group created a multi-page document (http://www.potomacriversafetycommittee.org/about.html) and held seasonal meetings. Before every season, the consortium invited every organization to send their coaches, coxswains and scullers to a meeting. The group handed out an exam after the meetings to reinforce the safety points covered. It also created a comprehensive map of the river, identifying all hazards and a traffic pattern, complete with which bridge archways to use and when.

The USRowing Safety Committee considers safety to be the number one priority of all organizations, coaches, coxswains, and rowers. By creating these consortiums, organizations form not only a standard of safety, but a means of enforcing the rules.

Recently a rowing club asked the USRowing Safety Committee for help. They had one club sharing their waterway which was a “wild card.” These rowers and coaches refused to observe the standard rules of the road, thereby creating a potentially dangerous situation for ALL boats on the water.

If traffic patterns are not obeyed, collisions can follow and rowers can be injured, or worse.  The committee worked with the clubs to identify rules they could all agree on for the betterment of all rowers.

When all clubs work together, the rules are defined and then (ideally) obeyed. Schuylkill Navy has created a safety plan, as have other regions. Avenues of communication are defined, and emergency information is shared. In Boston, the clubs and schools sharing the Charles have systems for quickly communicating hazards in the water, as well as water quality. A note will fly though the e-mail system alerting all rowers to the presence of a large tree or a strong wind.

In a good plan, all aspects of safety and awareness are covered:

• Emergency Plans and Rescue
• Contact Information
• Traffic Patterns
• Cold Weather Policies
• Hazards
• Sharing Weather and Wind Information
• Sharing River Levels or Currents’ Data
• Safe Equipment Guidelines
• Water and Air Quality
• And yes, courtesy on the water.

For more examples of safety plans, please click here to visit the “links” page of the USRowing Safety Information section on the Web site.

Also consider the regional enforcement policy (or create one). This may be easier to enforce with a group of high schools than trying to keep a strong-minded masters sculler off the water, when she’s on the wrong side of the river. Virginia Scholastic Rowing Association takes this consortium concept seriously. Their meetings are mandatory. Every coach must attend their meetings at the onset of every rowing season, or they cannot be on the water. At the Occoquan, this is enforced strictly.

The USRowing Safety Committee has regional representatives. All of the representatives have many years of experience working with organizations and would be happy to work with organizations to create a model of working together. Please contact us.

USRowing Safety Committee 

Casey Baker
Southeast
casey@resoluteracing.com
 
Rachel LeMieux
Northwest
Rachel.lemieux@mossadams.com

Stephen Marshall
Southwest
Stephen.marshall@brandes.com

Lee West
Mid-Atlantic
leewest53@aol.com

Margot Zalkind
Northeast
margotzalkind@aol.com

Willie Black
USRowing Staff Liaison
willieb@usrowing.org