We know which one is faster ... but which one is cooler?
It was back around 1990. Ken Windfelder was visiting the Philadelphia Irish Center on St. Patrick’s Day and someone was passing out information about an Irish rowing club. He thought: I can do that.
A month or so later, he was out on the Delaware River with Philadelphia Celtic Currach Club veteran Ed Lafferty, and Lafferty was putting him through his paces, teaching him how to row the 25-foot racing version of the traditional canvas-skinned, wood-ribbed Irish fishing boat.
“It was a hell row,” he recalls of his arduous introduction to this obscure sport. “When I went home, my wife said to me, ‘It looks like someone was beating the crap out of you.’ But I knew then that I was going to do it the rest of my life. That was 19 years ago.”
We’re out on in the middle of the Delaware in Bensalem, just offshore from the Columbus Country Club, and it’s Ken’s turn (with fellow rower Kathy Downey) to teach me the ropes. The one and only other time I’d sat in one of these boats, two years ago, I was a passenger. This time, when Ken asked me if I wanted to row, I thought: hell yeah. I couldn’t wait to dip my oar in.
We took a short, easy cruise, and I have only one blister on my thumb to show for it, but this quirky, water-soaked sport is great fun. Power boats, cruisers and jet-skis roar past, leaving our little craft to bob in their wake. Sure, they’re making better time. But in a currach, you feel closer to the river. Even at their fastest—and in a race with four rowers pulling, these light, skinny boats can take off—there’s still time to watch the world go by. You can hear more, too: It’s just you, the splash of river water and clacking oars.
Kathy, one of the women on the team—it’s a co-ed sport—has been rowing for 13 years. A friend of the Windfelters, Kathy was at a picnic when she first heard about currach racing. Ken was full of tales about a regatta in Boston. “At the time, they didn’t have any women on the team,” Kathy says. “My friend Sharon and I wanted to do it.”
Before long, they were winning races for Philadelphia. “You just get into a zone,” Kathy says. “Muscle memory takes over.”
This past Saturday was a practice session, and six of the club’s eight members were able to make it down to the musty, pebble-strewn banks of the river.
Taking turns, groups of three and four practice rowing north along the river, around a buoy marking the halfway point, and back again. It’s about two nautical miles.
Two of the rowers, Megan and Dan Stauffer of Audubon, are brand-new to the sport. It’s their first day. Dan has been practicing on the erg machine (a rowing machine) at the gym in preparation. But there’s a big difference, he says, between the erg machine and rowing on the river: “Erg machines don’t flip.” In the meantime, though, he says, “It seems like we’re getting the hang of it.”
Racing currachs calls for no small measure of endurance. A race out to the buoy and back can take more than 20 minutes. Scullers on the Schuylkill are done in five and a half minutes, Ken notes.
“It is a touch sport,” he says. “We lose people because it is very demanding. You either love it or you hate it, and you know it right away.”
If you want to witness this splashy Irish sport for yourself, a golden opportunity awaits. On Saturday, June 20, from noon ‘til 5 p.m., the local currach club will host its annual regatta at the Columbus Country Club, 2909 State Road, just a few blocks south of Street Road. Believe it or not, currach racing has a following, and teams from Annapolis, Boston, Pittsburgh, Albany, Milwaukee and Columbus, Ohio, will compete. Bring your beach chair and sun block.
And if you’re interested in joining, contact the Currach Club. http://www.geocities.com/phillycurrach/contact.html