Just a little update from down here in South Carolina.
Overall, the setup is better than what I had at Yale. Boats are closer, rooms and beds are better spread out, so there is a little space for everyone and the food isn't as "institutional" as at University of Tampa. The problem with that sometimes is that they sometimes run out.
There are close to 1200 rowers here this week. That's a lot of food. Sometimes, it's not easy to predict what they'll eat. Therefore, the camp ran out of vegetables two nights ago.
I'm not kidding. The only vegetable available was the canned corn off the salad bar. The salad bar that had no lettuce. Dinner was pasta, mashed potatoes, mac 'n cheese and chicken in some sort of gravy. I know rowers crave carbs, but this was a little out there.
The Wintech 8 got here without a footstrecher. Jason and I have no idea when it fell out, because the boat was complete when we stopped on Friday night. A new one should be here this morning, but we've been rowing that boat as a 7 since we got here.
Adding insult to injury, the wheels on the Empacher are going bad. The bearings in the wheels aren't doing very well, and the boats sounds like a Hot Wheels car being wound up when the crew goes up the slide on the recovery. I took all the wheels off to clean them out and that didn't make a bit of difference. Then, to punish me for disturbing their Karma, the bow seat blew up a wheel, slinging bearings all over the boat. It's been replaced with a Wintech wheel now, but now that means the Wintech isn't rowable (again.)
This is the reason many crews are going to one manufacturer now, because of spare parts. Vespoli parts don't fit anything else, and vice versa to a point. This forces everyone to buy parts from the various builders, and then you've got a huge stack of spare parts from three different builders. When something breaks, you're more likely to not have what you need.
I checked. Empacher wheels are 11 EUROS per. An 8 has 32. Do the math, and you're talking about one expensive replacement. I'm wondering who broke a mirror before we came down here, or walked under a mirror, or whatever. As usual, I'm feeling a little snake-bit.
Categories: Boats, Rowing, Training, Memories, Yale,
3 comments:
I think you need to invest in some snake repellent.
There's a snake in my boot...
You mean walked under a ladder?
Pittsburgh is still nice and crappy like you left it. Except it's a little warmer. Jay if it makes you happy I havn't ridden my bike in over a week because a part broke, and I'm waiting for it in the mail. That's about it, can't wait for you to come back and we can really get back out on the water in our boats.
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