By Rick Dandes
The Daily Item
SHAMOKIN DAM —
Losers were winners in Thursday evening's sixth annual Crying Towel Regatta, a series of three boat races on the Susquehanna River, where the last-place finishers were awarded a ceremonial towel to cry on.
And, they earned a platform on which to make wonderful excuses as to why they lost.
"It's all done for laughs," said Sheila Hartung, of South Williamsport, president of the Central Pennsylvania Rowing Association, the regatta's sponsor.
"This is one of our most enjoyable races of the year," Hartung said. "Basically, we have all of these boats and we throw people into whatever boats we can. They haven't practiced together. Some are experienced; others aren't. It's a race where we can show off this part of the river to our guests."
About 40 rowers in three boats participated in three 700-meter races, stretching from the intake to where the boathouse is at the Northumberland Boat Club.
The Susquehanna is uncommonly wide and has little competing traffic or other obstacles, making it an ideal location, even when compared to some of the most famous rowing locations in the Northeast.
Besides rowers from the CPRA, guests from the York-Harrisburg area and the Naides Oncology Rowing group from Rochester, N.Y., participated.
"We came here because the Susquehanna is one of the best places to row, said Teri Mahoney, of Rochester. "It's just a beautiful river, and this is a great location in which to race." But by 7 p.m., when the races began, the water was uncommonly choppy, due to all the other boats on the river. "I can see a lot of people are bass fishing tonight," Mahoney said.
She was in one of the winning boats. "We won because we're great," she shouted. "We couldn't do anything but win. Our coxswain was awesome."
While Mahoney had nothing but praise for her crew, the losers cried in their towels.
Janice Butler, of Lewisburg, on the first losing boat, said she lost because of a combination of factors. "We raced in an old boat, and we have wooden shoes," she said. "So it's really hard to push off with. We also had learn-to rowers in the boat. But we put in a really valiant effort, and I'm really proud of what we did."
Jill Martin, of Selinsgrove, had even more excuses. "We lost because we had too many oars, and they were too short. Our opponents had longer, sweeping oars. Our shoes were wooden, they don't tie and they're too small. Oh, and the coach wakened us. A huge wave came up against us. But I think we'll win the next race."
Sherry Ulrich, also of Selinsgrove, said: "Aside from the fact that we had the shortest oars, we also had the least amount of experience in our boat. Some rowers were only in their second week of rowing. That's probably why we lost."
There is no pride of place here, joked Jim Baker, of Selinsgrove. "Most of these rowers have never practiced together, but that's OK. We're hoping some of these rowers will come back and participate in real races later in the year.
