Last Saturday, March 2, four boats and crews from Vermont were in Hull, MA for the 43rd Annual Snow Row. This signature rowing race covers a triangular course, setting off from Windmill Point in Hull, continuing around Sheep Island, past Peddocks Island, and back to shore, and is unique for its LeMans-style start. It’s also unique for us as it’s one of a few races in the region that is open to youth and adult teams – which led to a great representation of Lake Champlain Maritime Museum boats at the race on Saturday!
As part of our inclusive Champlain Longboats boat building and open-water rowing program, the Museum has a fleet of over 20 traditional rowing gigs. During the school year, many of these gigs are used by high school and middle school rowing teams in our youth rowing community and the rest are used by the Museum’s adult rowing clubs from May to October. Rowing with the Museum has always been open to anyone who wants to experience it, or as our Director of Maritime Programs Nick Patch puts it, “if you show, you row.” As this program has grown over the past 25 years, we’ve seen many youth rowers graduate and go onto college and take up rowing or coaching in their own time. We’ve seen some of those rowers come back and join our adult rowing clubs and we’ve seen our adult rowing clubs grow each year.
At the Snow Row this past Saturday, we were so proud to see four unique teams representing this Lake Champlain Maritime Museum rowing community: the Mt. Abraham High School rowing team, alumni from past Champlain Valley Union High School rowing teams now competing as a young adult team, and two adult teams from the Museum’s rowing club. Everyone did an incredible job and set some great times for a cold and windy day – in particular the Mt. Abraham team pulled a close but resounding win in their category and the adult team rowing Frank Beckett placed a respectable 4th of 14 in their category.
From Andrew Rainville, Coach, Mt. Abraham Rowing Team: “One of the big highlights of the day for me was watching the Mt. Abe team hold off Sound School in a tight race. The Mt. Abe rowers were able to pull ahead and kept the lead. They were very excited with the win (undefeated in Hull this school year) and I’m super proud of them because they stayed focused the whole way. None of them had ever rowed the Snow Row before.”
The other big highlight of this incredible day was a surprise: our own Nick Patch was awarded the Ed McCabe Award for his work building the Champlain Longboats program into the incredible community that it is today. The award was presented to Nick by Ed McCabe himself who built the Hull Lifesaving Museum and rowing programs over the course of 40 years and helped Nick kickstart the Champlain Longboats program in Vermont.
Enjoy more photos from the day below thanks to Holly Weber. View full results from the Snow Row here.
If you’re interested in rowing with us this year, come join! Rowing clubs are open to adults of all ages and registration for the year opens mid-March but interested new members can join anytime. For teens and high school students looking for some rowing this summer, check out Expedition Champlain, an 8-day teen rowing trip setting off on the lake on July 28-August 4.
