Same Boat

Since its founding in 1989, the Cape Fear River Rowing Club has taken new forms and seen iterations of members. But from its inception until now, the club has consistently been an outlet for people of any background or rowing skill level to get on the water, create community, and work hard.

Initially, the club’s boathouse was at the end of Nun Street downtown, but after that waterfront property was sold, the club relocated first to Point Harbor Marina and is now based at Wilmington Marine Center.

With relocation and more years of development, the rowing club, which is co-ed, has grown – both in size and in its rowing practices. When head coach ALLISON POTTER started consistently attending the club as a member in 2009 after a history of collegiate rowing, she recalls twenty or so members. “There were mostly small boats, and it was mostly recreational,” Potter recalls.

Since then, she has seen it grow, with many members now competing at rowing regattas, usually four times per year. With the club’s now larger fleet of boats, along has come a larger group itself.

“We reached over seventy members pre-COVID, and now we still have a consistent fifty or so,” Potter says.

The club offers both disciplines of rowing: sculling and sweep rowing. With sculling, rowers have two oars and operate a boat that seats one, two, or four people. Meanwhile, sweeping accommodates a group of two, four, or eight, and each person only has one oar. Sweep rowing also has a coxswain – a person watching the water, steering and instructing the rowers.

While sweep rowing in particular is a true feat of teamwork and skill, sometimes people join the club with no prior experience.

The club’s president, KIM FUTRELL, is a testament to this.

“I started rowing in 2019 as someone who had never rowed in my life,” says Futrell, who now commits much of her free time to both rowing itself and making sure every aspect of the club runs smoothly.

“Often people are initially interested and join for the sculling opportunity,” says Futrell. “It’s a really peaceful, wonderful experience that allows you to get out on the water by yourself.”

While an individual boat might sound simpler than a group endeavor, Futrell explains that sweep rowing is actually important to hone first. “You’ve got to learn all the other things before you can get out by yourself,” she says. “It’s a difficult sport, and it takes a lot of time. It uses every single muscle in your body; you have to focus on your technique, your power. It’s a big mental push.”

Congregating five or six days per week, depending sometimes on weather, rowers assemble at the Wilmington Marine Center at 5:45 a.m. before heading out on the water for a little over an hour.

During team rows, each boat is not only taking the lead from the coxswain, but during practices, from Potter as coach.

“She’s able to see every small detail and has an incredible ability to guide everyone in the right direction,” Futrell says of the head coach.

Potter recommends interested attendees have pre-existing swimming skills, as well as moderate physical fitness, to meet the needs of both moving and operating the boats. These leaders in the club make it clear: The sport is challenging. This is not to discourage membership, but actually what makes it so rewarding.

“We have a lot of people who come into the sport and are middle-aged, having never been athletes before, just wanting to try something new. To see those people now consider themselves athletes or try a team sport when they never had, it’s so special,” Potter says.

For someone first starting out rowing, the club offers a Learn to Row introductory program. Every Saturday, interested new rowers can attend the program, which begins with time on the ergometer, a rowing machine Futrell and Potter refer to as ‘Erg,’ followed by about an hour in a sweep rowing boat on the water with established rowers by their side.

Those who choose to get an annual membership can experience all the perks: from a dock to jet off from at meetings, to the joy and determination that exudes from the team.

“It uses every single muscle in your body,” Futrell says about rowing. “You have to focus: on your team, your power, on the rhythm.” To new rowers, she suggests, “If you have the attitude of, ‘I’m going to figure this out,’ you’re going to succeed.”

Cape Fear River Rowing Club is more than disciplined time with a paddle in hand. Whether it’s in the few minutes before or after getting on the water, cleaning and maintaining boats, or on “workdays” where club members cut weeds at their dock or work on their equipment, it’s all about the team. “For me, it’s like a second family,” says Futrell.

To view more of photographer Madeline Gray’s work, go to madelinegrayphoto.com.

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