November 2024 - news

The fall always surprises Florida - is the wind coming or not - and unfortunately this year Florida received three visits of hurricanes - two of the, Helene and Milton came straight to Osprey and Sarasota. Together with our Masters team SCRC we secured the Boatyard and transported some of our valuable boats to our homes. These boats become inhabitants for about 10 days. After the last hurricane ended also the season of hurricane ended. We look back now here:

The wind was strong, but our hearts and work had been stronger. Some of our wooden racks and all the roofs have been destroyed / gone … but most of our boats survived the hurricane with a blue eye. Light scratches some punctured hulls but nothing what we could not fix with patient and love.

Different our wooden racks - nearly all have to be fixed and straighten out. Our surrounding fence tilted and broke and has to be replaced … but again - we have been lucky not to lose oars boats and other of our rowing equipment.

As we have been lucky with our Boatyard - as unlucky we have been with our dock. The replacement was planned in October, lucky for us Sarasota County did not start in time. The water, wind, flood and everything what is related to stormy weather put our dock on land and everywhere else

What to do next - find friends, Alumni and more to bring back live to the Boatyard and dock. The discussion with our County started and a plan is made to replace the dock in no time (fingers crossed). For our Boatyard, we needed help for all of you, us and more. The Scullers in conjunction with SCRC started a fundraiser - which would end with a dinner at the Amore restaurant in Sarasota. With 2 donors who committed to match $5000 we all came together and started doing awareness of the situation.

As you can imagine of the picture and the smiling faces, we made it. Over $20000 incl the matching $5000 came together at the end and we cannot say enough THANK YOU to each of them. The dinner at the AMORE restaurant was outstanding and we hope that all of you will go back there and support our community restaurant - click on AMORE and it will send you to their website.

You see above - rebuilding started and our racks will be stronger and durable as we had them before. Thank you for our SCRC Masters and especially Randy who sacrifices his time for us. At the end - there must be a big THANK YOU for him … we will keep you all posted.

What are our SSYRP Juniors doing (after sitting days in the dark home)?

All rowing clubs in our vicinity suffered damage. We all lost docks, the NBPark was flooded and the Grand-Stand ended up in the lake. After clean-up the first teams came back on the water in the beginning of November. Training resumed nearly instantly - bikes, running, games and beach sport brought our team back together. Unfortunately, some families needed to move away because of damage homes, and we hopefully will welcome them back in the beginning of next year.

Rowing started again at the Benderson Park - but as usual wind is many times not the friend and land-workouts became the constant partner in our journey. The finish tower for sure became friend of the legs our athletes.

Our first regatta in the fall season would have been the Benderson Chase - everything tried - but the damage of the course and other difficulties lead to a cancellation of the regatta. So … our team had to wait for Halloween … still the sword of Damocles hanging … but after moving the regatta from Tampa to the NBP - we finally could race again.

Together with our friends from Orlando City Rowing we had a blast. Our new members finally came to the pleasure to get into a real rowing race - I don’t know if they really enjoyed it after experience the real pain 15min of racing can bring to the body. At the end we saw a lot of happy faces - a bronze medal in our Middle School 8+ and great places of our 14/15 year old group.

Some fun was made (see below) - when some of us just fall asleep :-)

UPCOMING in DECEMBER

• Election of a new board of directors for the Scullers

• New oars for SSYRP

• Plant High Regatta

• End of Fall Season 2024 with FESTIVUS at the 24th of December

• Winter Camp December 2024 - January 2025