By G. PATRICK PAWLING
What is it with those skinny boats? You can't get away from them. It's like they're all over Ventnor and Brigantine, and now they're in Mays Landing, on Lake Lenape. So what's the attraction? They're no good for fishing, they're awkward to get into the water and they look like they're just waiting for a chance to go bottoms up.
I'm not sure I get it, but there are people running around Mays Landing right now who have a certain gleam in their eyes, the kind I like and recognize, the kind that tells me something interesting is going on. It's called crew. That's the sport where you step very carefully into the middle of a skinny, long boat and then go like heck, until you're sweaty and exhausted, and then you go like heck some more. Or not, apparently, since the outfit that runs the crew program at Lake Lenape, the Atlantic County Rowing Association, likes to think of itself as a mellow alternative.
Like people who love any sport, they have a hard time explaining the exact nature of the attraction, but it helps that it's outside and on the water. It's also good exercise. Nice people seem to be attracted to it. It can be fairly easy to learn but is also challenging.
"We got the bug, man," said Joe Haney, a former Holy Spirit crew coach and city firefighter who started the Atlantic County Rowing Association, along with a few other friends, in 1992. "You either love rowing or you don't."
It's easy to see where Jeri-Lynn Gatto stands on the subject, and she's only done it a few times.
"I like the beauty and the community feeling," said Gatto, who lives in Mays Landing. "It's like the best-kept secret."
Her 19-year-old daughter Amy rows, and so does her 12-year-old son Billy. The club attracts people from age 75 down.
"I grew up in Mays Landing, and I really had no idea how great it was out here," Gatto said. "I think it's ridiculous to have this beautiful lake and I've never been on the water here until now. This is an opportunity, and I'm going to take advantage of it. We're having fun. They are very, very kind here. They want you to enjoy yourself. And I like that we are doing it as a family."
"It's pretty cool," said Billy Gatto.
"Very relaxing, and at the same time it builds muscles," said Justin Radico, 13, of Somers Point.
"Waverunners are cool, but this is something that's a lot more relaxing," said Mike Kern, 13, of Somers Point. "It's just very calm and relaxing."
It might be good for them, too. Besides the discipline required by good rowing, it can help when it comes time to pay for college. Scholarships aren't unheard of.
But that's not really why Haney and the others started the club. They just like it, period. That's why he talked Atlantic County into expanding the facility it was planning at the park into a boathouse, which now sits proudly by a great floating dock. What a setup: the boathouse and a lake that, unlike the bays, is mostly shielded from the wind.
"Ninety-nine percent of the people who have come here have never rowed before," Haney said, proud that he might be leading people down a road heading straight for a lifelong addiction. "We said, 'Let's get rowing to the people.' "
The recruits first go onto a land-based machine to learn the mechanics of rowing, then into a wider, more stable boat for their introduction to the water. Even then they're kept on a leash. And when they're set free, that's when it hits them. These boats are the jet fighters of rowboats. They are amazing. An eight is about 65 feet long and only two feet wide. Yes, they can and do flip, but not as often as people might think. Haney said only two have flipped in the last year.
"When we first started, people were flipping all the time, so now we bring them along a little slower," he said. "We've gotten better as coaches."
As for Haney, well, he seems like a mellow guy, but he knows how to put it in another gear when he's coaching youngsters who want to go fast. Listen as he rides next to the eight in his aluminum motorboat, coaching them for an upcoming race:
"Together! Think! Think! Keep your head straight! Follow your partner! All right, let's go. Good! Good! Four, where should your outside hand be? Good, keep it there. Stay together, stay together. All right, 10 power strokes. Stay together, stay together. ... Two follow three! Don't be your own person! Relax! Work! All right let's go for the Big 20. Twenty of the hardest strokes you can row. But stay together. C'mon! Starboard, you're getting pulled! They're kicking your butts, starboard! The whole secret is to pull together. You don't have to pull fast to go fast and you don't have to pull harder than anybody to go fast, you just have to pull together and if you do that you can be the fastest boat in the water. Four! Who are you following? Everything is exactly just like the person in front of you. You breathe together, your arms are together and your bodies are together. And you have to follow your partner. If you get excited you don't do it together. Relax. Now do this together. "
Over in the beginner's section, looking very calm and sitting in one of the wider boats, is Charles A. Dupras of Mays Landing. He had just been let loose of the leash while his son, Michael C., and grandson, Charles M., looked on.
"Now what?" asked Charles A. "I guess I'll see you tomorrow."
"When you get to the dam, stop," his son said, chuckling.
The grandfather is 75. The son is 41. The grandson is 12. Does that say it all or what?
(For more information on the Atlantic County Rowing Association, call 576-0792. The association, by the way, could accept more than its limit of 20 new members a season if more coaches were willing to come forward. The charge is $75 for individual memberships per season. Family memberships are $175. There are three seasons, spring summer and fall.).
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