Check out the Whitehall Spirit® Rowing Club of Marina del Rey – Opening January 21, 2012 www.whitehalldelrey.com – Sign up for opening specials and become a founding member.

Open water slide seat rowing is coming to Los Angeles very soon. The first WSRC of Marina del Rey is currently under construction and will be installed by the end of January in a prime location in the heart of Southern California’s largest Marina.

The new club, like the WSRC of Victoria, features a large fleet of Whitehall Spirit Solo 14′s and Tango 17′s. The Marina del Rey was originally built back is 1966 and is regarded as LA County’s most popular attraction. There are around 5200 motor and sailing yachts and other smaller craft docked in the marina complex and soon they will be joined by some elegant Whitehall Spirit rowing boats.

What Marie Hutchinson and I really like about the club franchises is they are great example of what she has termed “Collaborative Economics” and is all about convenience, affordability, and quality time. Adventure, fitness, health benefits and stress relief make this opportunity a life changer for many people from owners to club members.

The photo above shows the future location for the WSRC club docks in Marina del Rey. The club docks are located right next to Mothers Beach, a perfect location for novices to learn the slide seat rowing stroke and boat handling skills to qualify as a club member. All are required to take this training before becoming a member. Members simply book their boats online using their personal passwords. Then it’s only a matter of showing up and going for a delightful row. Marina del Rey is a paradise of boats of all types and the water inside the marina offers miles of rowing with the option of venturing out into the Pacific itself.

The WSRC of Marina del Rey will be open for rowing in late January. For more information check out the website at whitehalldelrey.com or call 250 361 2621 We would love to talk to you and can line you up to become a member of this exciting new club. There is information regarding the WSRC franchise business at WSRCfranchise.com

Club Tee Shirts available – Men’s and women’s short sleeve and long…

Prices Men’s Tee $ 16.00 Women’s Short sleeve scoop neck $20.00

The men’s long sleeve at $20.00 is good for winter wear…

See pictures in the Classic Boat Festival shots on the Gallery Page

Update:

The first six months of the Club has been a great success. We’ve had fun and many members have met or exceeded the goals they had when they joined the club. We congratulate you. And to those who have had things come up that kept them from getting out more or renewing membership, don’t let the weather change stop you. Rowing in the winter months is actually quite nice. Yes, it’s wetter, and cooler, but there’s a special beauty to the water and wildlife in the winter. It’s why you’ll find outrigger paddlers and kayakers do their thing all year round here and rowing keeps you far warmer with it’s full body action.

Recently the TC ran a story on how only 5% of Americans actually get decent exercise. That hits home for us here in Canada too. It was based on a very thorough study, and what cracked us up was how they looked at the activities people did rating them as to whether they were moderate or vigorous/intense. Because most people did so little -things like reading – making a meal fell into the moderate category!

Considering this, I think all of us rowers can give ourselves a big pat on the back whenever we get out on the water and inhale that nice clean air.

New training program available

You can now sign up for a three-week course of three one hour training sessions to upgrade your boat handling and rowing skills.

What you’ll learn: boat handling skills including maneuvering in tight spaces; focus and awareness on the water – eg. who and what is where and what to do when other boats don’t know what they’re doing; feathering the blades; rowing posture and breathing, rowing in the dark.

This course offers one-on-one training with Andrea Guyon and is available on either Mondays or Tuesdays from 5PM to 6PM starting on October 12th. If we have enough interest in the course, we can bring in other instructors to accommodate members. For the fall/winter season we’re opening this to current members only.

The cost of the three hours of rowing instruction is $165.00 plus HST

What you’ll achieve: by the end of this three week training session you’ll look and feel like a much more confident rower and be able to better handle the unexpected.

To sign up call 250 361 2628.

Ocean Rowers coming to town…with their boat…

Club member Adam Kreek with Jordan Hanssen, Greg Spooner and Richard Tarbil are rowing to Victoria up from Olympia WA on a 24 hour-a-day marathon row as a practice run for the major event of crossing the South Atlantic late next year. See the attached PDF or visit www.oarnorthwest.com And it’s about a very worthwhile cause called “Right to Play”

It’s at www.righttoplay.com

Club members are invited to come out and row them into the harbour Sunday morning!

Book your boat now to make sure you have one! Call us if they are all booked.

Sunday 17th:

7 am: The 29 foot ocean boat and crew arrives in Victoria and dock at Dockside Green Ferry Dock

3-6 pm: Open house on rowing boat. Media in attendance. Radio, TV, Newsprint

6-8 pm: Penthouse cocktail gathering at Dockside Green with suggested donation of $20 for OARNW/RTP Club Members Welcome!

And if you have not seen it yet check out the You Tube clip called “TANGO GETAWAY”

Whitehall Spirit® Rowing Club™ at the Classic Boat Festival

See the Slide show on the Club Gallery Page…

Open Water Events

Open Water Racing Port Townsend

June 19 – Rat Island Regatta the 7 mi Rat Island Race from Fort Warden south to Rat Island and return. (See the Gallery for pictures) http://soundrowersandpaddlers.sports.officelive.com/RatIsland.aspx June 20 – The North American Open water Championships – 12 mi -Pt Hudson to Pt Wilson on to Pt Mcurdy and return. http://naowrc.wordpress.com/

The grand opening of the new Whitehall Spirit® Rowing Club™ fittingly took place on a beautiful sunny day with hardly any wind and warm enough for shirtsleeves. We were really pleased with the attendance as around two hundred and fifty people came by over the three-hour event.

Club founders Marie Hutchinson and Harold Aune in their brief opening speech said: “We know, based on feedback from thousands of happy Whitehall Spirit® boat owners over the past twenty four years, that this new open water rowing club will be enjoyed by all who join. We are pleased excited and happy now that this club concept puts open water slide seat rowing in a venue that all can participate in.”

Our special guests included:

John Sayre, Avid rower and US 1960 Olympic Gold winner who was also on the rowing team that beat the Russians in 1958 at the height of the cold war. John founded the organization ‘Up with People’ and currently works with the Northwest Chinook Recovery organization to preserve wild fish stocks.

Julie and Colin Angus, Both named ‘National Geographic Adventurers of the Year’ for their extraordinary adventures including around the world travel by human power alone. Julie Angus was the first woman to row across the Atlantic under oars alone. They have written several books and films about their adventures including “Rowboat in a Hurricane” and “Rowed Trip”v

Brad Vickers, World Trans-Atlantic record holder. Brad and three other rowers spent 71 days at sea rowing west to east across the North Atlantic Brad is lining up other ocean crossings under oar power in the coming years.

Adam Kreek, Current Canadian Olympic Gold medal winner and four time World Rowing Champion, Entrepreneur and Expert in High Performance, motivational speaker and author of the upcoming book “Beyond Success”.

All were present and mingled with the crowds along with ‘Captain George Vancouver’ a.k.a. Lawrence Irvine, donned in the Captain’s full regalia.

After a brief period of “speechifying” and eating inside the Canoe Brewpub Restaurant, we all adjourned to the docks. Soon every boat was out either transporting non-rowers or being sampled by the rowers in the crowd; some of whom are now new club members. Click here to see a slide show of the event