Helping Rowers On The Road

We receive a fair number of inquiries from members looking to row as they travel abroad. Our usual response is to suggest a posting in the country forum of the member’s destination. We in turn send out a message digest email to the GLRF members in that country, letting them know there is a posting and suggest that they post a reply. Those digest emails can be very helpful when there are a lot of GLRF members in a given region of the country. But what about those countries where we don’t have members or where there aren’t many members…? Then it can be a little more of a challenge.

Part of the value of GLRF is the existence of a connected community. For those others who don’t have a “family” (huge smile here), they are left to their own devices – referrals, and research on the web, and thumbing through the Rower’s Almanac . Most rowing club members attempt to contact clubs at their destinations. That requires advance planning and more work, along with the hope that the club will check their email, and be open to welcoming outside rowers. Here are some other tips:

• share your experiences with us so we can expand our knowledge base as Anna did when she visited Beijing ; for you web savvy among us, what do you suggest as a medium to share the repository of knowledge?
  
• contact boat manufacturers – we did this with Carl Douglas Racing Shells and with Cucchietti Racing Shells in Argentina. You can almost guarantee getting a nice row on a new boat!
  
• contact your local boat manufacturer reps for your region – they may have some connections abroad. Drew Harrison, the North America NW Region Rep for Wintech Racing offered this advice for a GLRF member headed to the pacific rim: ” There is a terrific rowing course outside Shanghai where the provincial team lives and trains. It’s as nice as any man made course in the world and was the site of my first visit to China, the 1993 East Asian Games. We stayed in lodging at the course, but I don’t know how to describe how to get there or the names of any current key people there. Our manufacturing facility is 3 to 4 hours drive from Shanghai in the Hangzhou region.”