The rising tide of crew in Sonoma youth

Sonoma Valley students take to the water with North Bay Rowing|

The sport of rowing is taking off across the Bay Area, and the number of Sonoma Valley teens in “crew” increases every year.

Five Sonoma Valley teens currently compete with the North Bay Rowing Club organization on the Petaluma River. The local rowers include senior Brianna Lehane, sophomore Sophia Falls and freshman Ethan Morgan from Sonoma Valley High; plus freshman Maia Reilly from Credo High School and Cardinal Newman junior Avery Romano. Two local middle school students, eighth graders Kyle Hoffman and Lorelei Deely are part of the club’s learn-to-row program. The students are coached by former UC Berkeley rower Will Whalen.

North Bay Rowing Club is the nonprofit in which Sonoma Valley High graduate Madeline Cline, class of ’14, rowed in high school.

Cline now rows for UC Berkeley. Six out of seven of Whalen’s seniors last year were recruited to row crew in college, with several receiving full scholarships. Sonoma Valley High senior Brianna Lehane was recruited by UC San Diego after just one year of rowing. She signed her commitment letter last Saturday.

North Bay Rowing Club was founded in 1984 by Greg Sabourin, who also published Row! magazine at that time. He has since founded the nonprofit Petaluma Small Craft Center, whose goal is to build a “Floathouse,” a dock-based public facility in the turning basin in downtown Petaluma. Eventually he’d like to see a public waterfront community boathouse, just east of the Highway 101 bridge.

Coach Whelan’s junior program is growing so quickly that he needs that community boathouse as soon as possible.

His teams operate out of a modest low-floating dock on the banks of the Petaluma River at Second Street on property owned by Van Bebber Steel. The dock is flanked by five shipping containers (in which the club stores its two dozen boats); inside, the kids practice on rowing machines similar to those seen at health clubs.

Whalen and his team of coaches have built the junior program from a dozen young rowers four years ago to more than 60 today, hailing from across Sonoma, Napa and Marin counties. Teens practice four weekdays from 4 to 6 p.m. and on Saturdays from 7 to 9:30 a.m., year-round on a 13-mile stretch of the river, just south of downtown. “It might surprise you but the Petaluma River is an ideal spot for rowing,” said Whalen. “There are long, beautiful stretches of protected river and not much traffic.”

There are two kinds of rowing: sweep and sculling. North Bay Rowing Club supports both. In sweep, rowers each carry one long oar and boats carry two, four or eight rowers. Scullers carry one shorter oar in each hand. They can row alone, in pairs or as a crew of four.

The North Bay’s sweep rowers recently competed in Petaluma’s Wine Country Classic regatta attracting 800 athletes from 32 clubs. Coxswain Sophia Falls’ boat brought home a silver medal. At the recent Head of the Port race in Sacramento, Falls’ boat again brought home a silver medal.

A handful of rowers also recently traveled to Boston to compete in the prestigious Head of the Charles Regatta in Boston (hocr.org). This is the largest two-day race in the world, with 300,000 spectators in attendance. Falls and her boat mates competed against 85 other teams in their category from across the globe, including four others teams from Northern California. 

“Sophia did an amazing job at Head of the Charles,” said Whalen. “She navigated her boat sight unseen through one of the hardest courses in America. She has a great rowing career ahead of her.”

Virtually no teen arrives at the dock ever having picked up an oar. The club offers learn-to-row summer camps, clinics and private lessons. “Our best way to lure kids to rowing is over the summer when they aren’t busy with their school sports,” said Whalen.

He mentioned Sonoma Valley freshman Ethan Morgan as an example. “Ethan came for the camp just to check it out and we see massive potential in him.”

High school rowers pay a flat club fee of $1,600 for the year which covers practice and instruction five days a week, local regatta fees plus the use of hundreds of thousands of dollars of equipment at each practice. “Rowing has a reputation as being an expensive sport but we do everything we can to make it comparable with other sports,” said Whelan.

Women’s crew programs in particularly have taken off in recent years, thanks to Title 9 funding. In the 1980s, just 42 colleges offered varsity rowing. Today 142 colleges have a women’s program.

Twenty minutes to our west, Whalen’s program is quickly outgrowing its corner of Foundry Wharf but Sabourin is working hard to bring expanded facilities to North Bay teens interested in getting on board.

Email Lorna at lorna.sheridan@sonomanews.com.

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