Slide Seat Rowing
Color As Different As The Boats Themselves
This is one of those delicious stories that takes on life from many
perspectives. It is my favorite type of project, appealing from many
angles. It began last fall when a birthday put me on the backside of
my 50s, and I acknowledged the need for a more personal focus on fitness.
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With no alarming medical
issues beyond bad knees and the general aches and pains of middle age,
I knew it was time to incorporate a more formal program of staying in
shape into daily life.
Running is no longer an option for me, and walking doesn’t seem
to be enough. I’ve never had the bug for bicycling, and while
I’ve kayaked since the ‘70s in the Pacific Northwest, it
works only the upper body and at my level, is hardly aerobic.
Over lunch, my friend Pete Trogdon suggested I get into sliding seat
rowing. Pete began rowing in college and still enjoys the sport. Today
Pete’s rowing boat is a Chesapeake Light Craft wherry he built
from a kit a few years back. When Pete experiences in recreational rowing,
the light came on for me.
While building a Chesapeake Light Craft kit boat is immensely appealing
to me, I just don’t have the space or time for a project like
that right now… maybe in a few years.
So I contacted Bill Larson of Little River Marine, and we discussed
the purchase of a fiberglass rowing skiff that would be perhaps a better
(and drier) choice for me than a narrow rowing shell. The company’s
Heritage rowing skiffs come in three sizes, but Larson suggested the
18-foot skiff as being the most versatile for what I intended.
As I researched the sport, I learned that sliding seat rowing burns
more than twice the calories as running at a recreational pace, and
both Pete and Bill were keen on the low-impact nature of its movements.
When I mentioned my experience with kayaks, Larson commended that you
won’t find kayak machine in the gym, but a rowing machine is one
of the best exercise machines in a quality gym.
So I bought a slot in the production schedule for a new Heritage 18
made plans to stop at Little River Marine’s shop in Gainesville,
Florida, on my next road trip south, to get the boat and bring it home.
PassageMaker July 2006 |
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