Dadvail Regatta 2007

Dad Vail is the largest collegiate regatta in the country, bringing thousands of rowers from over 100 college and universities to the banks of the Schuylkill River. And for me, it's like the first robin of Spring: Finally the weather gets nice again, and I can emerge from my winter shell and head out across the city with my camera, take photos, and make new friends. This year was no exception. It was really inspiring, too. Actually made me want to go down into the basement and row on my Concept2. Of course, by the time I got home, the feeling had passed. :)

As my friend would say, "My, there certainly are a lot of white people out today." And it's true. The crowd at Dad Vail was easily 99% white, with a few Asian rowers visible, and almost nobody black or latino. It's rather striking when you're used to the much more racially mixed Center City and West Philadelphia. It's a little surprising when you think about it. There are plenty of cities with rivers and large non-white populations (Boston, Philadelphia, New York, Washington DC, etc.), so I'm not sure why rowing has remained such a racially homogeneous sport.

There was a huge crowd at the regatta, and there was a lot of energy. Lots of shouting spectators and fans near the finish line, and then each college had an area devoted to it, where they kept the boats, and the teams and their coaches and families hung out and ate their picnic lunches.

People raced and people rowed:

People carried boats (which admittedly wasn't very exciting, but it did make for some good photographs. I particularly like the symmetricality of when the team lifts the boats straight over their heads, as in the 2nd and rd photos below. Here are some of my faves:

And people rested. Who can blame them? Hell, I was tired just from WATCHING all that rowing.

There was a parking lot-turned-vendor area, where there were free samples galore, t-shirts, cheese steaks, rowing-related art for sale, Verizon (for some strange reason), and yes, even the Peeps-mobile was there:

One woman brought her 2-month-old chihuahua, which was absolutely adorable. People kept swarming around her to get a look at the cute little dog.

But people were doing more than just rowing (and resting from it) on this beautiful day. They were riding bikes, walking their dogs, spending time with their children, and... engaging in... some sort of... sword play...for some reason:

We also ran into Kyle Looker, who was walking with some friends along the bike path on Kelly Drive when all of a sudden he leapt from the path to the rock face and started climbing. Once he got to the top, he needed a little help from below to find a good place to come back down. Kyle and his friends, who graciously posed for a photo, were rowers from California who made it as far as the semi-finals, but now that they had some free time while the finals were being decided, they went for a walk.

And that's it for Dad Vail for this year. I'm sure we'll be covering other events on the Schuylkill later in the summer.