As the water swelled and began licking over the gunwales of the three coxed fours I was coaching that gray early April afternoon, I realized I was woefully underprepared to handle the situation confronting me and my 15 high-school athletes.
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My coaching career began mere months after college graduation when I was named the head girls coach at a high school. With zero coaching experience, I was thrown quickly into creating a training plan, organizing an out-of-state spring-break trip, and, of course, developing my new rowers.
Like many young coaches, I had no formal education about how to do any of this, so I cobbled together my own approach based on what I had seen done previously, advice from local coaches, and what felt right. Most of the time it worked out pretty well, but not always. Not that April afternoon.
I had looked at a weather forecast but I didn’t really know what to look for. I was checking mostly for rain and temperature, not a wind forecast and certainly not a map of wind direction. I didn’t know the water temperature. So when, not long after we launched, the wind began to build, funneling down the lake and rolling into whitecaps, I was caught off guard.
The rowers grew increasingly concerned as I told them to turn and head back to the docks. Now broadside to the rolling waves, their shells were riding along the peaks and troughs, taking on water with each passing swell. I followed as closely as I could, though in my small tin jon boat I wasn’t faring any better.
Several coaches for other local teams, who were more experienced and had decided wisely not to go out that day, waited on the docks and pulled in each boat quickly. Everyone made it back intact, I’m glad to report, and the only injuries were my pride and a lost flip-flop. Very easily, though, we might not have been so lucky. The lesson for me: luck should have no role in safety.
My experience, sad to say, is not unique. Many coaches and rowers are not only uneducated about matters of safety but also unaccountable. Within our teams and clubs and at our regattas, we often place perceived competitive and training “needs” ahead of clearly defined and consistently enforced safety guidelines.
“What we do is extremely rowing-first,” said Tom Rooks, Director of Safeguarding at USRowing, (see interview) “and then we splice in as much safety as we know about—what some coach told us along the way. We don’t have a professional maritime approach.”
Little wonder. Few coaches consider themselves “mariners”; they are simply coaching a sport that happens to be contested on the water.
This attitude leaves us exposed unnecessarily to the dangers of an outdoor water-based sport—hypothermia, heat stroke, collisions, capsizing, drowning. Without proper protocols, coaches, facing the pressure of conflicting priorities or ignorant of impending risks, are left to make decisions in the heat of the moment, putting rowers at risk of injury and death.
Though rare, people have died rowing. In 2022, three rowers drowned in the U.S., and another four perished in 2021. These tragedies occur at every level, from high-school novices to elite rowers at world championships. Some are caused by medical events, while others, such as those involving equipment failure and collisions with other boaters, are terrible accidents beyond the control of rowers and coaches. Some, however, are the plain result of poor judgment and ignorance. They could have been avoided, and therefore are inexcusable.
In 2022, two boys, Langston Rodriguez-Sane, 12, and Gavin Christman, 13, died after their shell was struck by lightning and capsized. According to a wrongful-death suit filed by Rodrigez-Sane’s family, it was the boys’ first day on the water with the North Orlando Rowing Club. The club had “no effective weather-detection or alert system operational” that day and “failed to adequately and timely alert the rowers of the inclement weather and ensure they returned safely back to the boathouse.”
Moreover, an on-site automated external defibrillator (AED), which was used unsuccessfully on Rodriguez-Sane, was not working, the suit claimed.
“There’s no good reason why these kids were sent out when they were, the way they were, on the day they were,” said Andy Yaffa, the family’s attorney. “Had any of the most basic precautions been taken, neither of these two young men would have died.”
Basic precautions were ignored also on Iowa’s Little Wall Lake in March 2021 when two Iowa State rowers, Yaakov Ben-David and Derek Nanni, drowned after their coxed four capsized. According to an independent review conducted by the U.S. Council for Athletes’ Health, several safety guidelines were disregarded or not in place. No safety launch or coach was present. Although the club’s constitution bans rowing when winds exceed 14 m.p.h., winds were blowing between 20 and 25 m.p.h. at the time of the incident, and the water temperature was 40 degrees. Furthermore, team leaders failed to ensure that proper safety equipment and communication devices were available.
In 1984, Kippy Liddle, a coach from the Brooks School in Massachusetts, was overseeing her high-school athletes as they trained during spring break on the Schuylkill in Philadelphia when her launch engine died. She and a high-school student on board were swept toward the Fairmount Dam and grabbed ropes strung across the river. After ensuring the safety of the young coxswain on board, Liddle abandoned the boat and attempted to swim for shore. She drowned after being swept over the falls.
In 1983, at the University of New Hampshire, alumni were in town for a fundraiser and class-day row for the men’s and women’s club teams. Despite two Coast Guard small-craft warnings, five eights ventured out in the treacherous weather. Multiple boats swamped, and when one of the shells capsized, 19-year-old Glenn Hayes attempted to swim to shore. He succumbed to the icy water and drowned, and 11 other rowers were hospitalized for hypothermia.
At the 2019 World Rowing Championships, Dzmitry Ryshkevich, an experienced Para rower competing for Belarus in the PR1 men’s single, drowned after his shell capsized during a training row. As he spun at the end of the warm-up lane, his rigger broke off, the shell rolled, and Ryshkevich went under.
Other competitors and regatta staff witnessed his submersion, and although safety motorboats and divers responded quickly, Ryshkevich could not be located in the murky water. An investigation later revealed that Ryshkevich’s coach “neglected to install the screws on the port side of the wing riggers,” said Matt Smith, World Rowing’s executive director at the time.
When faced with such loss, the rowing community either learns and adapts or risks further loss—of life, of the sport itself.
“There has to be a reason for our suffering,” Rooks said. “For me, it’s so we can learn to make others better, to improve our next experience.”
Improvements have occurred.
“Every safety guideline is due to the suffering or the loss of someone else,” said Rooks.
In the aftermath of the loss of Rodriguez-Sane and Christman, the Florida Scholastic Rowing Association partnered with a local meteorologist to help coaches understand lightning risks. Iowa State conducted a review of club sports and instituted strict safety requirements for all teams. “Kippy Kits,” safety-gear bags containing life vests, a paddle, throw lines, and more, became commonplace in coach launches. At UNH, budgets for the club teams were increased to provide more coaching supervision and safety equipment, including better launches with life jackets on board.
The challenge is ensuring that these changes last. Commonly, as time passes, the people affected by the tragedies move away, the stories are forgotten, and apathy sets in. Safety requirements are eased. Budgets for safety equipment trimmed. As a high-school rower on Boathouse Row fewer than 20 years after Liddle’s death, I rowed past the Fairmount Dam every day but never heard her name or story.
“We, as a sport, refuse to learn,” said Jeff Friedrichs, a UNH crew-club alum and founding member of the Foundation for Rowing Education. “We have a history of machismo, of keeping our heads in the sand.”
Had the lessons of the UNH incident been shared widely, perhaps lives could have been saved at Iowa State and North Orlando.
“It starts with accurate reporting,” Rooks said. “What we have now is if somebody’s harmed in your region, or in your area of rowing, you know about it. And then about eight years later, we’ve moved on.”
Several rowing organizations recognize the importance of safety exceptionally well and back up their words with deeds.
The website of the Three Rivers Rowing Association declares: “Safety is the number-one priority.” The site presents relevant weather information, including air and water temperature, wind speed and direction, and water flow, as well as the Pittsburgh-based club’s safety procedures.
“These documents are reviewed annually and updated with the latest information and best practices,” said executive director Matt Logue. “We have a very engaged safety committee.”
The University of Washington is proud, rightfully, of its Water Emergency Training program (WET), which was developed in 2016 by the UW rowing teams, local police, fire, and medical personnel, and team physician Henry Pelto.
At the time, UW medical staff had procedures in place for responding to emergencies at every kind of sporting event and location, including the boathouse, but nothing for a medical emergency on the water. The team devised procedures and training for how to remove athletes from shells, move them into the coaching launch, and administer first aid. Each launch at UW is equipped with an AED.
WET aims to promote the safety of rowers around the world by creating emergency-action plans that fit the unique needs of each club, team or university. Its website offers videos demonstrating how to administer chest compression in a rowing shell, how to remove an incapacitated athlete from a shell using a chest strap, and more.
Both Washington and Three Rivers prove that a commitment to safety needn’t come at the expense of competitive excellence. The Three Rivers juniors won four regional championships, sent eight crews to Youth Nationals, and brought home a silver in U17 women’s single last year. The UW men and women both finished second at their respective national championships in 2023.
At the national governing body, Rooks is working to improve education and communication. USRowing issues an annual safety report, and Rooks and his team are working on a more comprehensive safety manual with clearer, more concise guidelines.
In addition to Rooks, who is, as far as he knows, the first full-time staff member dedicated entirely to safety, USRowing recently hired an internal case manager for the first time. Emily Goldsmith handles all safeguarding complaints, from physical injuries to SafeSport violations.
Beyond the obvious threat to life and limb, lax attention to safety threatens our sport’s very existence. Schools, clubs, and boards of directors won’t support an activity that may maim or kill participants, especially young ones. After the Iowa State investigation into club sports, the university instituted strict guidelines that resulted in the discontinuation of several teams, including sailing, water skiing, canoeing and kayaking, and skiing and snowboarding because of a “prohibitive level of risk.”
Safety is everyone’s responsibility. Rowers should be aware enough to listen for thunder themselves. Coxswains should ensure that all shells have lights when rowing at dawn or dusk. An assistant coach should be able to tell the head coach that the team cannot launch if visibility is too low.
If that’s not happening on your own team, changes need to be made. Now. Lives depend on it.
