Home of North Dakota Rowing: Welcome

This website was part of an effort to introduce and popularize the sport of rowing in North Dakota. The picture album tells the story of our “learn-to-row” campaigns and the different rowing sites that we explored in Eastern ND and Western MN.

We mostly did sculling on the Red River in Fargo and Grand Forks, but discovered that Valley City, Jamestown, Bismarck and Dickinson offer decent conditions for rowing during the summer.  Our rowing group is no longer officially active and we thank everyone who participated, supported and encouraged our effort.

 For more details email - northdakotarowing@yahoo.com  

Rowing Facts (adapted from the USRowing website - http://www.usrowing.org)
- Rowing in its current form originated in the United Kingdome during the 1700s and is one of the original sports in the modern Olympic Games.
- Rowers were the 3rd largest US delegation (48 athletes) at the Olympic Games in 2000
- Rowing is the first intercollegiate sporting activity in the United States and the first intercollegiate sporting event in the country is the “boat-race” between Harvard and Yale which began in 1852.
- Physiologists claim that rowing a 2,000m race, approx. 1.25 miles, usually completed in around 8 minutes - is equal to playing two games of basketball, back-to-back.
- Physiologically, rowers are superb examples of physical conditioning. Cross-country skiers and long distance speed skaters are comparable in terms of the physical demands the sport places on the athletes. 
- Eight-oared shells are about 60-ft long - that’s 20 yards on a football field. An eight, which carries more than 3/4 of a ton (1,750 pounds), may weigh as little as 200 pounds. The boats are made of fiberglass composite material.
- Singles may be as narrow as 10 inches across, weigh only 23 pounds, and stretch nearly 27-ft long. 


Rowing Links (Right click & “Open in New Window” if you don’t want to leave this site) 
Row2K - the BEST web-resource for the US rowing scene
The Rowing Service - international rowing news, info & links
Rowing FAQ - frequently asked questions about rowing from the Rice University Crew
Rowing Style/Technique - click on “Strokecycles" at the left hand side of the web page
Sculling Primer - excellent introduction to sculling from Peinert Boat Works
USRowing - the governing body for the sport of rowing in the USA
Rowing Canada - the National Sports Organization for the sport of rowing in Canada
Amateur Rowing Association (ARA) - the national governing body for the sport in England
International Rowing Federation - Fédération Internationale des Sociétés d'Aviron-FISA
The Masters Rowing Association - for rowers 23 years old and older
Oxford & Cambridge Boat Race - oldest duel rowing race in the world (since 1829)
Regatta Central - website for regattas in the USA
Rowing Books, Videos, DVDs, etc - from NORTHWESTROWING.COM
Rowing quotations - from Saint Ignatius high school Crew
Rowing quotations - from Museophile Ltd
Anti-Rowing (The Source Of All Evil) - Rowing humor
Crew Personalities by Mike Sullivan - Rowing humor
Twickenham Underground - Rowing humor (has some adult content)
* For more links click on “Links” off the menu on the left hand side of this page. 

Selected Rowing Quotations
"The Greek in me wanted to know what it felt like to pull an oar. The intellectual wondered about how to get eight individuals to move to the same beat. The athlete wanted to check what has been described as the ultimate workout. The romantic craved seeing if the quirkiness of the sport -- there is after all, little practical value to oarsmanship in the postindustrial age -- stirred his blood." - Barry Strauss from Rowing Against the Current

"Marathon runners talk about hitting 'the wall' at the twenty-third mile of the race. What rowers confront isn't a wall; it's a hole - an abyss of pain, which opens up in the second minute of the race. Large needles are being driven into your thigh muscles, while your forearms seem to be splitting. Then the pain becomes confused and disorganized, not like the windedness of the runner or the leg burn of the biker but an all-over, savage unpleasantness. As you pass the five-hundred-meter mark, with three-quarters of the race still to row, you realize with dread that you are not going to make it to the finish, but at the same time the idea of letting your teammates down by not rowing your hardest is unthinkable...Therefore, you are going to die. Welcome to this life." - Ashleigh Teitel

"The athlete's anerobic threshold, the point at which the body's muscles have exhausted their oxygen store and start burning other fuel. For regular folks, reaching that threshold is quitting time; anaerobic work is 19 times harder than aerobic work. But rowing is all about harder. Elite rowers fire off the start at sprint speed -- 53 strokes per minute. With 95 pounds of force on the blade end, each stroke is a weightlifter's power clean. Rowers cross their anaerobic threshold with that first stroke. Then there are 225 more to the finish line." - ESPN Magazine, May 2000

"Nice? It's the ONLY thing, said the Water Rat solemnly, as he leant forward for his stroke. Believe me, my young friend, there is NOTHING - absolutely nothing - half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats. Simply messing… he went on dreamily: messing about… in… boats; messing.." - Kenneth Grahame from The Wind in the Willows

"On June 14, 1998, I pushed off under quiet gray skies from Nags Head, N.C, in the American Pearl, a 23 foot long boat made of plywood and fiberglass. I planned to row 3,637 miles across the North Atlantic to France. I was alone. There were no chase vessels. No one planned to drop food or equipment to me along the way. The physical goal was easy to explain: I was attempting to do something no American and no woman had ever done -- to row solo across an ocean." - Tori Murden, first American and Woman to row across the Atlantic

"As I grow older I will remember the mornings on the water at six. I will remember the early sun, my will to win, the strength in my arms and the power of the crew. As I grow older I will remember how I always reached beyond myself in everything I did. And how today I still do." - Unknown

"When one rows it is not the rowing which moves the ship: rowing is only a magical ceremony by means of which one compels a demon to move the ship." - Nietzsche