Life Lived

Kelly and I had the opportunity to attend the Windermere Cup today in Seattle. This is a premier rowing competition hosted by the University of Washington that has been around since 1987.

I was inspired to attend this event after beginning to read The Boys in the Boat about nine men who sought to win gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics. While we had previously been on the campus and walked around the Conibear Shellhouse we had never attended a rowing event. So we decided that we would experience something new. That we would attend a university level rowing event and why not attend one with such history and international ties.

The event started at 10:00 AM today with the premier races occurring around 11:00 AM. There were a number of races for rowing clubs based on age and then of course the races for the university level and then the men’s and women’s cup races. These races start out in Union Bay on Lake Washington and finish in the Montlake Cut (The Cut) 2,000 meters later. We were able to find a viewing location near the end of the race before the finish line for today’s event.

We listened as the announce called the races once the teams entered the last 500 meters of their race. It was interesting that in some cases they would start a race while the previous race’s teams were still on the course. In fact, in one case a team from a following race actually finished ahead of two of the four teams in the race that had started before it!

Once the premier races started though additional announcers were added so we could hear the whole race from start to finish. we learned that there was a head wind and some rougher water that the rowers were having to get through before calmer waters that were sheltered by the yachts that lined the course. Then of course the land based crowds would cheer as the teams entered The Cut and made their way under the Montlake Bridge and to the finish line. We could hear the alternating chants of “Go” and “Huskies” from the alternate sides of The Cut as the teams would row through the narrow waterway and to the finish line.

The University of Washington (UW) Women’s 8 won their Windermere Cup race but the Men’s 8 were not quite as successful. The lost by two seconds to the New Zealand U23 national team that has evidently been “the” force in international rowing over the last year as they prepare for the 2016 Olympic Games in Brazil. It was exciting to hear the race called as New Zealand was able to row to an early lead of some size and the UW Men closed the gap but just did not have quite enough to catch them in the end.

Looking back it was a beautiful day in Seattle and for being outside. The venue for this event was also well set in the waterways of the Seattle area. Both Kelly and I agreed that we would come back to another Windermere Cup event some day and even started talking about where we would set up and view the next races from when we do.