ERA committed to keeping alive tradition of rowing in wood boats

When it comes to the rowing, a wood boat is heavier and more cumbersome, and thus more difficult to propel through the water.

But when it comes to the history, it doesn’t get much better than being in a boat that belongs to the sport’s bygone era.

From the early 1900s until around 1970, racing shells made of wood, usually cedar, were the standard for competitive rowing. Many of them were built here in the Pacific Northwest, and one of them was used by the University of Washington crew that won the gold medal at the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin, as chronicled in the best-selling book “The Boys in the Boat.”

And at the Everett Rowing Association, which trains on the Snohomish River just north of the city, there is a commitment to keeping alive the tradition of rowing in wood boats, at least on occasion. A group of ERA alumni, many of them college students, train once a year to race a wood boat in a summertime regatta, and the experience is both unique and meaningful.

Compared to newer boats, which are mostly made of a carbon fiber composite, rowing a wood boat “is completely different,” said Dave Hammond, a 2011 graduate of Mukilteo’s Kamiak High School and a current member of the Washington State University crew team. “Everything from the shell to the oars to the blade is all completely throwback, and it gives you a lot of respect for how difficult it was to row in those days.

“I’ve been rowing for nine years,” he said, “but (being in a wood boat) makes me feel like I’ve been rowing for nine days. It’s so different and technically demanding. But then when you’re finally able to make the boat get going good, it’s just a feeling of exhilaration.”

“It’s like a different sort of rowing,” added Hannah Aikman, who graduated from Lake Stevens High School in 2012 and rowed two years at Washington. “The (wood) boats are really special to row, and to be able to get out in one and experience what it was like to row them is really cool.”

The idea of retaining a few wood boats belongs to Lynn Dykgraaf and Marty Beyer, who in 1983 were the two primary co-founders of the ERA. In the last two decades, Dykgraaf said, “we committed at the (ERA) board level to having at least one wood boat at the boathouse that would be row-able.”

“It’s a part of our culture and it always will be. It’s an experience we want these kids to have. … They need to know about more than just winning races. This is history and (rowing wood boats) is a connection to the past.”

The ERA actually has three row-able wood boats — one for eight rowers, another for four and one for a single. The eight-oared shell, which is the one Hammond and Aikman row, was built in 1973, near the end of the wood-boat era.

But the club also has another wood eight-oared shell hanging in the club’s boathouse. It is roughly the same vintage as the boat rowed to victory in the 1936 Olympics, with both designed and constructed by the late George Pocock, a famed Seattle boat builder.

It is the history that makes wood boats so special, Dykgraaf said, and that history has been renewed by the success of “The Boys in the Boat.” The book “has really sparked an interest in these boats and in rowing in general,” he said.

“When the kids touch that wood boat, everything changes. Their whole demeanor changes compared to the (carbon fiber) boats. Everything about the boat is different and their seriousness jumps up a little bit.”

A year ago, Dykgraaf and his rowers took the eight-oared wood boat to Seattle for an annual summertime regatta on Green Lake (unfortunately, the ERA is unable to row the boat in the same regatta this year). The rowers that day wore throwback cotton jerseys and high socks to make the experience more genuine, and although they were several places from winning — to be expected, since their boat was heavier and more difficult to row — it was still a treat for the rowers and spectators alike.

Hammond remembers “everyone just gawking at the boat because it’s so unique. You don’t see boats like that around anymore.”

And for the crew members there was “a special feeling that you get, just being able to carry that boat down (to the water),” he said. “It’s a feeling of being a part of past history and of present history, and of being able to bring them together.”