Gear Hub: Row, row a boat 

All you need is a boat and oars" to get out on the water, according to Paul Irving with BigBigSLO and the Baywood Rowing Club (aka the Baywood Navy), who happens to have boats to spare.

click to enlarge

• PHOTO COURTESY OF PAUL IRVING AND MARTY HAWKE
• On the hunt
  Rowing rigs come in all shapes and sizes. While savvy shoppers might be able to snag a good used boat for $400 to $1,000, according to Baywood Rowing Club member Paul Irving, a standard used boat will cost about $1,500 or more, said Marty Hawke with the SLO Rowers Club. Both said that Alden 16s (top) are a good entry level boat, which run between $3,500 and $5,000 new. At 16 feet long and about 2 feet wide, the boat weighs about 40 pounds. Visit adirondackrowing.com for more info. If you’re concerned about balance and portability, Hawke recommends an Oar Board (bottom), which are between $3,300 (on sale) and $4,600 new. The 13-foot long, 32-inch wide inflatable paddle board comes with a rowing rig that gets mounted on the top and wheelie bags for ease of transport. Visit oarboard.com for more info.

He has 24 boats, more or less, from his "itty-bitty slow boat to my racing shell," he said one Wednesday morning in May as he rowed his wooden boat across Morro Bay toward the sand spit. How many boats Irving has depends on the day, the boat for sale, and the deal, which he seems to be able to seek out like a homing pigeon. He's obsessed. A new rower and oars aren't cheap, but finding a well-priced used boat (possibly, between $800 and $1,500) can make getting into the sport a little cheaper.

Irving has been boating for about 35 years, most of those spent kayaking and sailing, and he's constantly encouraging people to get out on the water with him—often lending them a boat from his fleet.

"I've got about 9,000 miles on the bay," he said.

Rowing became a fixture in Irving's life during the pandemic. Now, he and other members of the club do their best to meet at the Baywood Park Pier around 7:30 a.m. five days a week and head out on the water.

"Get outside, get the blood pumping, breathe some salt air," Irving said. "It's a great way to start the day."

If you want to try it but don't know where to start, he recommends looking up the San Luis Obispo Rowers Club, now in its 20th year at Santa Margarita Lake.

"The best thing you can do is get some pointers from people who know," Irving said. "With rowing, it's super easy to develop bad habits and hurt yourself."

Marty Hawke, who's been a club member since its founding year in 2003, has helped teach countless people to row. The club offer private lessons ($75 for two hours) and three five-week sessions per year (this year's are already sold out) on the lake in club boats.

click to enlarge

• COURTESY PHOTO BY MARTY HAWKE

At about 70 members strong, Hawke said the SLO Rowers Club has the largest membership its ever had. He attributes it to COVID-19 and a growing interest in the sport.

"We always joke, it's one of the few sports that you can sit down in," Hawke said with a laugh, adding that the sport works about 85 percent of the muscles in your body. "Rowing uses more muscles than any other activity."

At 76 years old, Hawke has been rowing for almost six decades, starting in college in 1965. He said about half of the club's members have been rowing since college and half learned to row by taking lessons from the club and later joined.

"We can teach anybody to row," he said, from people in their 80s to kids who are 12.

A member recently helped start the Cal Poly Rowing Club, which is now officially recognized by the university and has about 15 student members. The SLO Rowers bought an eight-oar boat and a four-oar boat to help out the Cal Poly crew teams. Volunteers spent months refurbishing the boats and getting them ready to use.

In addition to those crew boats, club members have access to any of the 20 or so rowers the club has on hand in the boathouse next to Santa Margarita Lake.

"The privilege of being a club member is you get access to all these boats. ... So you don't have to buy equipment," Hawke said. "They're expensive. They're not easy to store."