GLRF hosts a booth at the 2010 San Diego Crew Classic

For the seventh year running, GLRF hosted a vendors booth at the San Diego Crew Classic, 27 – 28 March 2010 on Mission Bay in San Diego. The eights-only event draws collegiate crews, masters teams, juniors, and open entries from Mexico, the United States, and Canada. This year’s event featured 338 entries from 120 clubs.

Without a hint of the usual San Diego fog or the rainy Southern California spring, the sunny weekend weather created a spectacular backdrop for the races. Last year had seen some high wind conditions on the race course which resulted in two boats ejecting rowers who caught crabs. High afternoon winds typically favor the inside lane but this year the calm conditions meant all the races were evenly matched.

Powerhouse Stanford which had dominated the race medals in the past several years gave way to some of the usual competitive standards, University of California at Berkeley, UCLA Women, Marin Rowing Association, Long Beach Rowing Association, Palm Beach Rowing Club and Kent Mitchell Rowing Club. Some of the surprise winners included: Trinity College, University of Virginia, Temple University and Washington State University. Crews compete for a variety of race perpetual cups and trophies, 32 in all.

The GLRF booth was one of 24 vendors at the event this year. It was great to see fellow vendor alums and GLRF friends Erin and Amy from Pocock Racing Shells, Tom Gallagher from Sykes North America, Loralynn from Sew Sporty , GLRF member @susan143 from Resolute Racing Boats, and sexy sultry chick Margaret Christopher from Whirling Girl Jewelry. Our booth neighbors were the super nice guys from Sports Graphics on one side and the Sharp Cushman Wellness Center on the other. Sharpe was offering free bodyfat measurements so a lot of the guys were ‘getting measured’ right next door (somehow they thought it helped if they were stripped to the waist) and then compared their numbers with their friends. Let’s face it, guys like to compare themselves with each other…and it usually involves numbers!

Stopping by the booth to say hello were GLRF members from San Diego, Boston, San Francisco, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Austin, and Seattle. A big shout out to GLRF Member @sandiegosue3554 for her willingness to spell those of us dying from drinking too much water … As usual, a lot of the collegiate women stopped in to check things out and several men looked over with multiple glances or ventured inside the booth in the company of a group. We had two unusual booth visitors, first among them was a group of rowers from the Delfines de la Bahia Rowing Club, San Felipe, Baja California, Mexico. They were glad to have some of the GLRF ‘Love2Row’ stickers and they came back several times to see the display of t-shirts. The second visitor of note was the Episcopal Bishop of Ohio, Right Rev. Mark Hollingsworth, Jr., who was impressed to see our booth at an event like the Crew Classic. He congratulated us on our presence and wished us well.

The event also was the first time many rowers had a chance to see the new GLRF Come Out and Row Henley shirt up close. The soft feel and the blue on grey colors made the shirt an instant favorite among booth visitors.