Last fall, the club crew season was cut short by two weeks when Exeter’s Facilities Management Department discovered major structural problems in the retaining wall next to the docks. Instead of reinforcing the wall with pilings, the corrugated sheet metal alone held back the weight of the entire shoreline. Surprisingly, this inappropriate construction held for decades before any serious instability was noticed. Though the discovery abbreviated the fall season, any delay would have pushed the reconstruction process into the spring season, potentially disrupting the practice schedule.

With little more than a month until crews hope to get back on the Squamscott, construction efforts are well underway. A new retaining wall supported by a reinforced concrete slab (pictured left) will provide much greater support and stability. All in all, the construction is on schedule to be completed in time for the start of the spring season in the last week of March. Hopefully the ice will clear by then!

In the meantime, a number of Exeter rowers have been training in preparation for the CRASH-B Sprints World Indoor Rowing Championship this Sunday. The event will be held at the Agganis Arena in Boston, and is free to all spectators. Entrants from the Academy include Lane Pertusi ’09, Josh Sans ’09, Will Scheffer ’09, Nick Cushing ’09, Ryan Jones ’09, and coaches Sally Morris, Rebecca Moore, and Marshall Moore. For further information and complete seeding information, head over to the CRASH-B Sprints website. Planning to attend? Let others know on the forums.

Photos courtesy of Andrew Safir ’08.

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Though it’s been quite a while since the site was last updated, the rowing world is preparing for another exciting spring season. Also, a discussion board is now active at http://exetercrew.com/forum/index.php.

Both the Boys and Girls Varsity teams will devote a week of their spring break this March to honing their technique and improving their fitness as another racing season approaches. By the time the crews get back to Exeter on March 24th, the Squamscott River will hopefully be clear of ice so practices may begin in preparation for their first race on April 19th. Girl’s co-captain Allison Courtin ’08 said that “All the girls are really excited and optimistic, especially since this is the first spring training trip we’ve had in a few years.” Courtin also noted that “the entire team is going to be very competitive this year, from first to sixth boat.” Boy’s co-captain Ian Winthrop ’08 said that “the particularly strong senior class this year combined with a competitive group of younger oarsmen should continue the trend of fast varsity boats.” Co-captain Tim Moore ’08 also noted that “three of the seniors are returning to row on the first boat, and with Vaughan Coder back from an injury last spring along with Chris Jones and Andrew Safir from the second boat I think that the seniors will push this year’s crews to compete at the highest level.” Boys head coach Lawrence Smith also mentioned that with an additional coach coming on board, both sides of the boathouse will have more flexibility to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of practices.

2008 is also an Olympic year, and two Exonians are getting ready to row in Beijing this summer. Sloan DuRoss ’95 and Deaglan McEachern ’01, who qualified the United States in the Men’s Quadruple Sculls event at the Rowing World Championships last summer in Munich, are training to race for Olympic gold.

On the other side of the country, a bad thunderstorm turned into a disaster when a tornado hit the Vancouver Lake Crew boathouse in Vancouver, Washington. According to the news report released by the club, the tornado “lifted the club’s two buildings off of the ground and scattered them over 300 feet away completely destroying the contents. All 18 training ergs were destroyed along with all the equipment and supplies. Out of the approximately 50 shells stored at the site only 3 survived the falling trees and blowing debris. Hundreds of thousands of dollars of equipment has been destroyed.” Fortunately, no one was inside when the tornado struck. While cleanup is underway, the non-profit club is seeking donations to help rebuild their boathouse and replace their devastated fleet of shells. For more information, visit the Vancouver Lake Crew website here.

Lastly, the CRASH-B Sprints World Indoor Rowing Championships are barely a month away. Registration for the February 24th event at the Agganis Arena in Boston ends February 10th. A number of Exonians are slated to race the 2000 meter “sprint” as their first erg test before pre-season starts in mid-March.

Photos courtesy of The Boston Globe and Row2k.

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Although current NEIRA regulations prohibit Exeter from entering boats into the Head of the Charles, this year one boat competed in the regatta that represented a particularly notable Exonian.

Andrew Hancock Sudduth ’79 learned to row his upper year at Exeter. Olympic sculler Sharon Vaissiere taught Sudduth, Trevor Laughlin ’79, and Kate Lowry (Bryant) ’80 to scull in the fall of 1977. Sudduth and Laughlin raced in the Men’s Youth Doubles event, while Lowry raced in the Women’s Youth Singles. After rowing through his senior year at Exeter, Sudduth enrolled at Harvard and rowed in the Crimson’s heavyweight eights under the guidance of Harry Parker. At the same time, Sudduth represented the United States on an international level, competing in a number of Olympic Games and World Championships.

In 1981, only two years after graduating from Exeter, Sudduth won a silver medal in the Men’s 8+ at the Under 23 World Championships and another silver medal a few months later in the Men’s 4+ in the Rowing World Championships. He would follow up and win a bronze in the same event in 1982. In 1983, his Harvard boat came back over the University of Washington to win the (now defunct) National Collegiate Rowing Championship. That summer, Sudduth finished seventh in the Men’s 4+ in the World Championships. The next summer at the 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles, Sudduth rowed in the stroke seat of the Men’s 8+ which won a silver medal, finishing 0.42 seconds behind first-place Canada. By 1985, Sudduth, now in his senior year at Harvard, led his eight to another NCRC Championship and a Henley Royal Regatta Grand Challenge Cup win. At the World Championships, he won a silver in the Men’s Single Sculls in 1985 and a bronze in the Men’s 8+ in 1986.

After an illustrious career in rowing and later in electrical engineering, Sudduth died of pancreatic cancer in July 2006.

After his death, Kate Bryant thought of a way to honor her friend.

When my son was born at 12 lbs, Andy and I were laughing that finally, someone would break his erg records and row for Mr. Parker. Last June, George pushed away from the dock at Newell, in his first sweep boat, and I was unable to share the moment with my friend. I decided to transform the power of my loss into a positive gain for someone else, like Andy did for me; to mobilize the sad helplessness I was feeling into an active, tangible event to lend confidence to promising young rowers like we were.

Bryant made an entry in the Mixed Director’s Challenge Quad event, a special charity event held just before the Championship Eights on Sunday. Sudduth’s friends, Kate Bryant, Sharon Vaissiere, and Trevor Laughlin came from across the country to race in the “Sudduth Memorial Quad” in the regatta in which Sudduth won the Championship Singles every year from 1984 to 1988.

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