BAINBRIDGE ISLAND — “Sit up straight, heads up. Chest up!” yells rowing club coach and Poulsbo resident Allison Olanie. “Drive with those legs! Full pressure, full speed!”
Practice each morning in Eagle Harbor for the Bainbridge Island Rowing Club junior team is intense, with the team working hard in preparation for its main summer regatta race at Green Lake. Each club member knows only the most in-synch and strong boats will place high at the event held today.
The juniors, ranging in age from 13 to 18, hit the water on Bainbridge at 7:30 a.m. each morning with rowers coming from off the island, as well as on. Aside from the location of practice and the rowing club’s name, there’s nothing exclusively “Bainbridge” about it.
“We’re the only team in Kitsap County,” said Olanie, who graduated from North Kitsap High School and also rows with the older “masters level” women’s team. “As a club we’d like to see it grow and spread.”
Olanie, her two sisters Kate and Maddie, and recent NKHS graduate Katie Dale make up the North Kitsap contingent of the team, a small but growing rank of juniors who are making the trip across Agate Pass to participate on the squad.
Maddie Olanie, a former student in North Kitsap’s PAL program, will be in her first regatta at Green Lake, racing as the coxswain in her novice eight boat. She started racing in June, coming with her sister Allison and training to help rehabilitate an injured knee.
“I don’t think kids really know about (the club),” she said. “But it’s a good group and the coaches are really good, too.”
The rowing club actually comprises of three squads: two older “masters” clubs, one for men and one for women and the aforementioned juniors. All three will compete at Green Lake, against at least 20 other teams and many of the participants are signed up for more than one race, making it an all-day event.
Allison Olanie said she likes her team’s chances at the event.
“It’s a good solid group of athletes, so we should do well,” Olanie commented.
After she rows with the women’s masters each morning, Olanie, along with Bainbridge Island resident Nate Rooks, coaches the junior team. During Wednesday’s practice, two boats, a “four” and an “eight” (referring to the number of participants in each) cruise back and forth in the harbor, with Rooks and Olanie coaching from a distance in a motorboat.
“Let’s go you guys!” yelled Rooks, as the eight-person boat prepared for a practice run. “It’s racing season. You can taste it!”
“Timing is massive,” Rooks added. “If you don’t do everything together, it’ll throw the whole boat off.”
“I’ve met a whole new group of people because I don’t go to school here,” said Dale, who also plans to tryout for the competitive rowing team at Western Washington University when she enrolls there in the fall — only a year after she joined the Bainbridge team.
Kate Olanie said that since she’s joined the club, it has become a goal do to well and something that takes patience and a lot of concentration.
“You can zone in and focus on one thing,” she said. “It’s very athletic.”
“I think it’s the love of the sport,” added Allison Olanie. “These kids are dedicated, but it’s that love that keeps them coming back.”
Coming back, whether it’s on the island — or off.
“This isn’t just for Bainbridge Island residents,” said masters rower Barb Emel. “It’s for anyone in Kitsap County to try.”
