Sports
New Rowing School Takes To The Sea
New establishment on Gas House Beach is bringing attention to a growing sport.
Maryellen Auger has been an avid open-water rower for several years, often taking a boat out into Little Harbor at Gas House Beach, which is just across the street from her home.
Beginning this summer, Auger hopes to share her love of the sport with seasoned rowers and gain new converts, having launched in May her new venture Rowing For All, a rowing school and membership club.
This weekend, Auger held an open house at the Little Harbor Boat House off Orne Street, which until recently was an empty warehouse. Now the space is filled with long oars and several of the sleek boats made by ECHO, a Maine company.
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Meanwhile, Rowing For All was holding a class for beginning rowers, under the instruction of Brian Chorney, head rowing coach at Endicott College in Beverly.
Beth MacQuade of Marblehead and John Slattery, a Marblehead High School senior, joined a half-dozen others at the beach as Chorney demonstrated how to work the oars, or "sculls."
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"I rowed when I was at Smith College a really long time ago," MacQuade said. "I was on the crew team and I really miss it."
MacQuade convinced Slattery, the son of one of her close friends, to take the course with her because "he'd be an excellent rower," she said.
Slattery had never so much as sat in one of the long, narrow boats, although he's been out in a motor-boat many times before, he said.
"We're creating a serious open-water rowing training center here," Auger said. "This sport is taking off -- there's room for it to grow."
Auger rows 10 months out of the year, in competitions and at locations all over the North Shore and in Maine.
The idea for the rowing school -- which also offers dry storage in the boat house for members -- came to her after National Grid, which owns the land abutting Gas House Beach, forced Auger and dozens of other rowers and kayakers to remove their boats from the sea wall on its property.
She approached Ted Moore, who owns the building where the school now resides, about starting the school.
Jim Keating, a retired MHS teacher and the MHS golf coach, joined Rowing For All as an instructor for kids ages 13 to 18. Keating grew up on the New Jersey shore and has been rowing for 50 years.
"It's a life-long sport," Keating said. "I'm not playing football anymore, I'm not playing basketball anymore, but I still row."
