Weekend Pick: The Regatta

Forget the Arts Festival, the Hy-Vee triathlon, and even state wrestling championships. For me, it is the regatta that labels Des Moines as a city of note.

Okay, I’ve never watched a regatta. Yet, the image of shells gliding through water always makes me think of Cambridge and Oxford and the prestige their graduates have offered to world-class institutions. Back in Des Moines, the local river may not lead to sites of ancient history but the local rowing club can offer up a darn good education.

The Des Moines Rowing Club hosts the Head of the Des Moines regatta on the last Saturday in September. This year that date is September 29. Club members are excited that Lesleh Heim will be coxswain for the men’s eight. Heim rowed on the Canadian women’s team for a decade and now lives in Carroll, Iowa. There will be 600 other participants competing in 60 races. Races are scheduled for high school and collegiate teams, for gender-segregated and gender-mixed teams, and for rowers over 50 years old, just to mention some of the categories.

Races begin at 8:30 a.m. and end at 5:00 p.m. Competitors will row downstream from the Birdland Marina to the starting point near the Botanical Center. They will then row in timed races upriver to Prospect Park. I asked Jill Emmert, a second year rower and regatta committee member, to share some insights that would help a novice spectator better appreciate the competitions. This is what she wrote:

“[W]hat spectators need to realize is that all the boats are on their own timer and start at different times. So no one knows who won until all the boats have crossed the finish line and the times have been reported. The ways you can tell if a boat is doing well is by watching the bladework. If the blades are all off of the water and the boat is doing a good stretch of gliding between strokes, they are doing well. Another thing to watch is the rowers. If they look like they are all doing the exact same thing at the exact same time, they are doing very well. If watching from Prospect Park (the finish line) you will notice that a lot of this stuff is not happening because many rowers are very tired by now. It is, after all, a three-mile race. And they have been rowing for at least 20 minutes before you even get to see them. Another thing to remember is that rowing is a total body workout. There isn’t a part of your body that isn’t tired after 3 miles/20 minutes. All you can do is concentrate on your crew members and your cox. You try to forget about everything going on around you and keep your head in the boat. And row like a bat out of hell.”

This is the 24th year of the regatta. Now that I know what to expect, I am looking forward to the races.

Guest Writer: M.R. Field is editor of Leading Voices: Iowa.