GRP Row Fall Schedule
The GRP rowers’ fall season kicks off this weekend and stays busy through mid-November. First up is the 1886 Tuxedo Regatta, a head-to-head, knockout-style event. Racing takes place on Sunday in singles and pairs over 2,000 meters, with $4,000 to the winner of each boat class and $2,000 for second place. Catie Castle, Paige Wheeler, and Matthew Skubas are racing the single, and Jesse Ryno is racing a pair with Mike Herman. It will be an exciting day of racing, and GRP rowers will get to reunite with GRP legacy rower Holly Drapp, who is also racing a pair.
Sophie and Sera after wining the double at HOCR last year
The following weekend, October 17–18, the team heads south to Boston for the Head of the Charles Regatta, the largest three-day regatta in the world with roughly 11,000–12,000 competitors. The course is just under 5 km with tricky turns, which makes steering an important factor. GRP has three doubles entered: Natalie Hoefer and Grace Donabedian, Quin Woods and Matthew Skubas, and Evan Hankins-Hull and Kevin Harvell. Paige, Catie, and Cillian Mullen are racing the single.
Overlapping with the Head of the Charles, the World Rowing Beach Sprint Championships take place in Qingdao, China, October 18–21. In beach sprints, a rower sprints down the beach to the boat, slaloms through buoys to a turn buoy, races back to the beach, and sprints to a buzzer. GRP legacy rower Sera Busse is racing the mixed double, and GRP’s Charlotte Wiley is racing the mixed quad at her first World Championships. The two have spent the past few weeks training together in Chula Vista, California, to prepare.
The next weekend, rowers head to the Head of the Fish in Saratoga Springs, New York. Sue Holderness, Grace Donabedian, Natalie Hoefer, Jane Doyle, Quin Woods, and Matthew Skubas will represent GRP on Saturday, October 24, racing in singles and mixed doubles. The race has fun prizes: the winner takes home a specially decorated plaque with a fish head.
Head of the Fish Prizes
The last race of the season - and the most impactful on National Team selections - is the Fall Speed Order, November 14–15 in Princeton, New Jersey. All U.S. athletes who want to race at next summer’s World Championships are required to race, and it also serves as the U.S. Small Boat National Championship. GRP will race the following:
Women’s 1x: Catie, Paige, Sue, Jane, Natalie, Charlotte, and Grace
Men’s 1x: Matthew, Quin, Evan, Kevin, and Jacob Plihal
Women’s 2-: Cillian and Sophie Calabrese
Men’s 2-: Jesse and Mike
