Rallye du Canal du Midi Marblehead Team Page

http://www.wickedlocal.com/marblehead/features/x1465123737/Marblehead-Rock-Row-Club-members-to-scull-en-fran-ais

A big thank you to Joy Rotondi for writing such a fantastic article for us!

Marblehead Rock & Row Club members to scull “en français”

Marblehead —
For the first time in France’s Rallye du Canal du Midi’s 32-year history, American rowing teams will race against boats from France, Italy, Germany, Belgium, New Zealand and Australia.

Marblehead’s own Rock & Row Club boasts two boats for the 125-mile canal race from Toulouse to Béziers. Club scullers include Marblehead’s Frank Kashner, Pal Bickford, Eileen Perry and Bobbie Oakley, as well as Jay Paris of Cambridge, Kimberly Waller of Salem, Shannon Tarrant of West Peabody and Charlie Harak of Melrose. Members of the Rock & Row teams range in age from 25 to 67.

Two members of the Rock & Row contingent — Susie Klein and Jim Hammitt of Wayland’s Cambridge Boat Club — are two of only five Americans ever to have participated in the rally in its entire history. They rowed with a French team in 2011, and returned to the U.S. with the goal of recruiting a first-ever American team. Their efforts were well received.

There will be five other U.S. boats — three from Lake Merritt Rowing Club in Oakland, Calif. and two from the Narragansett Boat Club in Providence, R.I. — also participating.

Nearly 60 Americans will be traveling to France for the rally with seven rowers on each team accompanied by team supporters. The boats are a touring-style quad, common throughout Europe, but non-existent in the U.S., with four rowers — two oars each and one coxswain.

Additional team members follow the route on bike to scout out the portage strategy, and rotate into the boat to relieve tired scullers.

The course covers 125-miles over five days. One of the biggest team challenges is portage of boats over 48 locks. The Canal du Midi is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Follow the Rock & Row team’s blog on www.readytorow.blogspot.com, and learn more about Le Rallye at atppr.free.fr

Courtesy photo
The Marblehead Rock & Row Club members going to France to participate in the Rallye du Canal du Midi, a first for American teams in the tournament’s 32-year history are, from left, Frank Kashner, Kimberly Waller, Shannon Tarrant, Pal Bickford, Bobbie Oakley, Eileen Perry and Charlie Harak.

Read more: http://www.wickedlocal.com/marblehead/newsnow/x1465123737/Marblehead-Rock-Row-Club-members-to-scull-en-fran-ais#ixzz2bKN0s0fW
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MARBLEHEAD BOAT #1

Charlie

Charlie is the RnR "outlander" as he lives in Melrose and works in Boston at the National Consumer Law Center as a lawyer, advocating on behalf of low-income energy consumers (e.g., keeping them warm and keeping their lights on). Charlie rowed a little on the Merrimack River about 8 years ago, but only really started rowing when he joined RnR in its 2nd year in 2008. With 5 springs/summers on the water under his belt, he also serves on the RnR board as clerk; he also sits on the board of an anti-poverty agency in Malden. His other main activity, apart from rowing, is Taiko drumming.

Jim

Jim Hammitt has logged tens of thousands of miles on the water racing sailboats of all sizes, but fell under the spell of sculling on the Charles River as a student at Harvard in the 1970s. He continued rowing a single out of California Yacht Club in Marina del Rey in the ‘80s and then returned to rowing on the Charles out of Cambridge Boat Club in the 1990s. He has been an active member of Emulation Nautique de Toulouse, a Toulouse, France-based rowing club, since 2010. Along with his wife, Susie Klein (see bio elsewhere on this site), he is one of only a few Americans ever to row the Rallye du Canal du Midi.

When not on the water, Jim labors to save the planet for future generations from the ravages of pollution as a professor of Economics and Decision Science at the Harvard School of Public Health. His work concerns the development and application of quantitative methods—including benefit-cost, decision, and risk analysis—to matters such as global climate change, stratospheric-ozone depletion and food chain safety.

Pal

Pal works for IBM in a group dedicated to competitive sales and business analysis for Cloud and Collaboration software. She has had many jobs in technology consulting and product development.
Pal started rowing in the mid-80's using her uncle's shell on their lake in VT. She learned the finer points of rowing at Craftsbury Rowing Center. Pal also rowed out of Union Boat Club in the early 90's but the commute from Marblehead became a bit much to keep up with. Pal then began rowing in Marblehead 3 years ago -- early mornings before work. She rows an empacher in VT and a club boat at the Marblehead Rowing Club.

Outside of rowing, Pal enjoys tennis, golf, biking, gardening, snow shoeing, and skiing. She spends close to half of her time in VT.

Susie

Susie Klein’s fascination with gurgles started in her infancy during afternoon naps on her father’s day sailor. She made her first solo voyage in search of gurgles at age four on the waters of San Francisco Bay—in an eight-foot sailing pram. She got 100 feet from the dock and promptly capsized, getting a gush of cold saltwater instead of the desired gurgles. (What was Dad thinking?!?) She quickly bounced back from the resulting bout of PTSD and embarked on a lifelong pursuit of gurgles–and the company of those who share this mania.

Susie’s early life focused on achieving gurgles under sailboats, but in college she got turned on to the thrill of gurgles under racing shells. Ever since she has indiscriminately sought gurgles under sail- and oar-powered craft.

At age 15, Susie determined three criteria for her future husband (listed here in order of priority). He must: 1) like gurgles; 2) be able to beat her in sailboat races; and 3) be smarter than she is. This narrowed the field considerably, and led her on a 10-year manhunt to hundreds of regattas on two continents. At long last she found her man (see Jim Hammitt bio elsewhere in this blog) feting a good day of gurgles in a yacht club bar on the banks of San Francisco Bay.

Except for some regrettable lapses—mostly involving making a living—Susie and Jim have gone to great extremes to get gurgles ever since. More recent exploits include shanghaiing their sons—then ages 16 and 14—and sailing their 40-foot boat from Boston to Turkey in 2005-06. In 2011, while living and working for three years in Toulouse, France, they rowed in the Vogalonga, the famed 30K “long row” in and about the Venetian canals and lagoon. They also rowed the 30^th annual Rallye du Canal du Midi in 2011, making them two of only five Americans ever to row the rally.

When the duo returned to their permanent home near Boston in August 2012, Susie resolved to enlarge her circle of friends who crave gurgles by recruiting the first-ever American team to row the Rallye du Canal du Midi. Her efforts have been wildly successful. Seven US boats are entered in the 2013 Rallye, encompassing more than 50 American rowers from clubs in New England and California.

When she’s not on the water, Susie throws herself wholeheartedly into her fourth and favorite career: teaching ESOL (English to speakers of other languages) at MassBay Community College and Framingham State University.

Frank

Frank is a husband, father of 2 boys, and a psychotherapist in part time private practice in Salem, MA. He has no history of athletic activity except some recreational biking. Three years ago, at 65 years old, he turned to rowing as a healthful activity he hopes to continue right into middle age. He spends the rest of his time writing about psychology and education, based upon his experiences as a school based therapist and previous careers as a union activist in a local factory and a manager in software engineering organizations. He sees the unifying theme of his various careers as an exploration of the question, “How do we continue to fulfill the goals and values of the Enlightenment and democracy, inclusive of all of the world’s people?” He will continue his meditations on that question on the Canal du Midi and invites others to also consider the question.

Jay

Bertrand

MARBLEHEAD BOAT #2

Bob

Bob Eldridge fell in love with rowing watching the 1968 Olympics on TV when he was 11 years old. “I want to do that!” he told his parents, who pointed out that there are no rivers like that in Los Angeles. Instead, he spent the next 11 years becoming a competitive cyclist. At 22 his life changed when he saw a Laser Recreation Shell in a mail order catalog. LA may not have long rivers, but it did have small reservoirs where he could take out a Laser.

That rec shell was his introduction to rowing. As he tells people, his first coach was horrible because it was just the manual that came with the boat. There was no one else rowing on the reservoir, so he received no feedback and had no one to mimic. While learning to row, he was still primarily a cyclist and often competed in 100 and 200-mile bike races and even finished a 320 bike mile race in less than 21 hours (The LA Wheelmen’s Grand Tour).

When Bob was 34, he and his family moved east and he could finally row on a “real” river – The Charles! Bob brought his rec shell and years of bad technique with him to Massachusetts. However, even with his poor form and sluggish boat, his competitive nature forced him to desperately try to stay up with the racing shells on the water where the other rowers would tell him, “if you ever learned how to row, you could be really fast.” That all changed when he went out one morning with a sculling group from the MIT boathouse and tried his hand in a real rowing shell. It took almost no time in a scull for him to realize that this was now his sport.

As timed passed he progressively got faster and started competing. While he has excelled in sprint races, winning Master Nationals and FISHA Worlds sprints, his true love is long distance rowing. One of his favorite distance races is a 10-mile race in Maine where he holds the course record (without handicap). Since setting that record, the course has changed, making him the holder of the old course forever! In 2005, Bob and 4 other Americans competed in the one-day, 100 mile Tour de Lac Le’man [Lake Geneva] in Switzerland. His team was the first American team to compete, took first and set a new course record. He has also rowed and won the GMS 6 miler and many other longer distance races.

Bob has rowed the Head of the Charles 12 times, winning in both double and quads. He has given back to the rowing community through coaching high school, college and club teams. While he’d like rowing to be his full time job (and his wife often thinks it is!), he real profession is as a technical expert for IBM.

Bob still cycles regularly and can be frequently found riding his favorite bright green fixed gear bike around regatta sites.

Shannon

Upon moving back to Boston, 7 years ago, Shannon took up the sport of rowing on the Charles River out of Northeastern University’s Henderson Boathouse. Originally starting off as a sweeps rower, Shannon found sculling the following year and has been sculling up and down the Charles River ever since. In 2012 she also joined the Marblehead Rowing Club in order to broaden her rowing experience by taking up open water rowing.

In addition to rowing, Shannon also enjoys spending time with her family, traveling, spinning, skiing, and pilates.

Bobbie

Bobbie is a relative newcomer to rowing. A water enthusiast all her life, she joined RocknRow three years ago after stopping by a community rowing day sponsored by the club. Bobbie is a dedicated member of the “Sunrise rowing group” and can be found most early mornings at the dock or on the water dodging lobster boats and buoys but most of all enjoying the beautiful sunrises over Marblehead harbor. Bobbie is an architect specializing in retail and public space design. Her projects can be seen all over the US as well as Argentina and Russia.

Originally thinking she would just stop by Paulie’s house to watch some slides of the Rallye, Bobbie found herself caught up in the excitement, beauty, and adventurous spirit exemplified in the Rallye and said “ I’ve got to be part of this!” Outside of rowing Bobbie enjoys hiking, swimming, skiing, and playing croquet!

Kimberly

Kimberly Waller took to ocean single scull rowing only two years ago through the Marblehead Rowing Club. She was a US Diplomat for nearly a decade living in the Former Soviet Union, the Middle East and India. Kimberly is a public health professional focused on maternal and child health in Asia and the Middle East. Currently she is living near Boston on the ocean with her six year old daughter, her husband and their chocolate lab puppy in Salem, Massachusetts.

Kevin

Kevin has been rowing for about the past ten years, starting when we probably should have been a coxswain. He rowed competitively throughout all of high school helping his team secure the Midwest Championship every year. Moving to Boston for college, he rowed more for fun but started taking up sculling. It is amazing how much more fun rowing can be when people aren't screaming at you and working you to the point of death. After college he crossed coasts for California and became too busy to row. But when Rallye came knocking on his door he made the time to get back on the water. And he hasn't regretted it for a second, okay maybe during the first couple of blisters.

Carol

Carol was fortunate enough to have discovered rowing at Narragansett Boat Club back in 1991. As she drove her son to school she would see the boats and just decided to give a call. The rest is history. She has been on the Board for 18 of her 22 years as a member, developed some wonderful friendships, raced and won at many races over the years. NBC is truly a unique club being the oldest club in the country. The membership is very much like a second family. In the past 5 yrs she has won medals at the Charles with 1 bronze and 3 gold. She hopes to continue her success in 2013. Carol drives to the club 35 minutes 6 mornings a week to row with some terrific people. When she am not rowing at the club, I am rowing or sailing at my home in Jamestown. In addition, to my rowing I work in infectious disease as a Consultant Public Health Nurse Manager for the state of RI. My work there is as equally fulfilling as my rowing. I look forward to my adventure in France!

Eileen