RowingRelated

And we're back! After a week-long sabbatical following the 2015 RoRy Awards , celebrating the best of the best from the 2014-2015 season, we're ready for the 2015-2016 season, with the Head Of The Charles now less than two weeks away. But before we get into the racing, it's time to congratulate the finalists and select a winner from our September #rowingcribs Instagram contest!

#rowerswakeupearly Instagram contest Thanks to everyone who submitted photos to our Instagram contest! We were blown away by the quality of the submissions from all over the world, and we struggled to narrow them down to a final 20, with our overall winner to become the RR Facebook cover photo for the month of April. Selection criteria included overall composition and image quality (resolution). And so, without further ado, the finalists are...

The winning photo, thanks to @radcliffecrew On Monday, we announced the 21 finalists in our Instagram #RowingRelated Winter Training Photo Contest, and today, we've picked a winner. Congratulations to Harvard-Radcliffe Crew for taking first place for this gorgeous shot of the Harvard heavyweight men walking up the dock during their Florida training camp! As promised, the winning photo will be the RowingRelated Facebook page cover photo for the month of February—and, frankly, it looks awesome !  Sunset on the Manatee River @harvardheavies #wintertraining A photo posted by Harvard-Radcliffe Rowing (@radcliffecrew) on Jan 20, 2015 at 3:44pm PST Thanks to everyone who participated in the #RowingRelated photo contest this winter—we were blown away by the quality of the entries, and choosing a winner was a very difficult process, to be sure! It has been great getting to follow and learn more about all of your winter training trips (and associated mustache ...

The light at the end of the tunnel... (Photo: B. Kitch) Suffice it to say, we've been stoked about the response to our #RowingRelated Winter Training Photo Contest on Instagram, not least because our audience has been logging winter miles in some very beautiful places (maybe winter training isn't all that bad?). Thanks to you, we've gotten to see some beautiful sunrises in Portugal, dramatic clouds over Florida, thick fog and brilliant sunsets along the California coast, and much more. So, after two weeks of entries, we've had to narrow it down to 21 finalists—a difficult process, and we appreciate everyone who tagged us, mentioned RR, or used the above hashtag to share their best rowing photography. Selection criteria included overall composition and image quality (resolution). And so, without further ado, the finalists are...

There's no denying it. Rowing is a sport that is as visually beautiful as it can be physically brutal. The early mornings and late evenings set a dramatic stage, and every now and then you get something completely unexpected. Not long ago, we ran our first rowing-themed weekend hashtag project via the @rowingrelated Instagram handle. The theme? Winter training. While the number of submissions wasn't enormous, the quality was, quite simply, impressive—we tasked our followers with documenting some aspect of their training this season, using the hashtag #RRwintertraining, and, as promised picked a few of our favorites to share. And, the photo below is our overall winner—a fantastic shot of a foggy training session in Southern California thanks to Wisco alum and Long Beach Junior Crew coach Erich Hanxleden . You can follow Erich via his Instagram handle, @racedayeveryday . Congrats again to Erich, and thanks to everyone who submitted images for the #RRwintertraining project...

The above gallery includes our favorites from the RR Flat Water Tuesday Photo Contest —a beautiful collection of images! A huge thanks to St. Martin's Press, and all those who participated! Winners: we'll be in touch shortly via email to sort out the logistics. If you'd like to read more about Flat Water Tuesday , here's what people are saying on Goodreads . (Mobile users: Click here to view the photo set on Flickr.) And, what better time to celebrate the beauty of rowing than following what is arguably the most prestigious rowing race in the world, Henley Royal Regatta —itself certainly not short on stunning scenery (on and off the water)! This year's Henley included some of the most remarkable match-ups, and edge-of-your-seat races, of the 2013 season, not least of which were the two finals that pitted U.S. collegiate varsity crews against GB squad entries. Much more on that to come very shortly. -RR

The NCAA, IRA, and USRowing Youth National Championships are all in the books, and school's out for the summer. And, for all you scholar-athletes out there, it's the perfect time to start thinking about your summer reading list. Naturally, being that we're pretty into rowing (and likely you are, too), books that involve the sport are generally more appealing. Set on the East Coast of the United States, author Ron Irwin's Flat Water Tuesday tackles more than rowing, though the sport is at the heart of the narrative, and features a Boat Race, or Harvard-Yale Regatta, kind of rivalry between the main character's school, Fenton, and Warwick. Irwin's background includes experience as a rower at Kent School, and his prose draws you into a story that has a sense of awe and mystery, with a tinge of the irony that is born of reflection. The protagonist is one Rob Carrey, a filmmaker who splits his time between Cape Town, South Africa and the Eastern United States (muc...

And the winner is... Jacksonville University Rowing ! The above video is a fantastic introduction not only to the sport, but also to the facilities and the philosophy of the JU program as a whole, touching on those aspects of rowing that can help to shape your character, and, indeed, the rest of your life. Not only does it talk training and the team, but also it addresses the academic environment for student-athletes while attending Jacksonville University. The video does this by means of interviews with both student-athletes and coaches, giving the viewer a window into all levels of the program, and is also one of few submitted for our contest to show both indoor rowing and training on the water. The primary narrator, Brad Negaard , is a benefactor of the program, a former JU coach, and son of Robert Negaard (inventor of the wing-rigger )—the current JU boathouse bears his family name . Clearly, a great deal of thought went into the production of this film, which is b...

The above video is our pick for No. 2 overall, and it's easy to see why—making use of innovative camera angles and representing every available boat class, this video is a solid introduction to the sport, from the junior to the elite level. The video was submitted by Clemens Obrecht , who explains that "[ WSV Ottensheim ] rowing club has been the most successful club at national competitions for the last few years and also brought out outstanding international rowers—for example, the under-23 world champion of 2012 in the women‘s double sculls, Lisa Farthofer , and the winner of the World Rowing Cup in Munich 2012 in the lightweight men’s quadruple sculls, Dominik Sigl ." The video was created by canoeist Erwin Trummer , and it's now used as a recruiting tool in Austrian schools to help promote and grow the sport of rowing. Thanks very much to Clemens for sending along the video, and congrats for being named our second overall pick! Tomorrow marks the official ann...

Henley2012 from Washington Rowing on Vimeo . The countdown continues! Our pick for No. 3 overall is a fantastic video of the Husky frosh racing at Henley Royal Regatta last summer, thanks to Washington men's assistant coach Rick Gherst . While it's not a recruiting video in the traditional sense, showing potential Huskies both the level at Washington and the opportunity to compete overseas will certainly go a long way toward convincing the next generation of UW oarsmen to make the Conibear Shellhouse their home away from home. Above all, it's high quality, well edited & features excellent rowing—what more could you want? Thanks to Rick for submitting the video, and great work! Tomorrow, we'll post our pick for No. 2 overall, with the winning video to be posted on Monday as our VOTW. -RR

Thanks to all those who participated in our first-ever RR video contest and helped to make it a success! Today we begin our countdown to our top pick for the best rowing recruiting video, and winner of our December contest, with our pick for No. 5 overall. The above video comes to us courtesy of Wyatt Harrell of Capital City Rowing , and does well to showcase the sport, the team and the environs in Tallahassee. Great work Wyatt and congrats on being named to the top five! Tomorrow we will announce the No. 4 overall video from our contest, with the second half of Joe Abrams's 'Game of Inches: Masters Nationals 2012' to be posted on Friday. Our No. 3 and No. 2 videos are coming up this weekend, with the winner to be announced and featured as our VOTW on Monday, 7 January, 2013. -RR

The above video, produced by UCL following the Head of the River Race earlier this year, is a fine example of a recruiting video (whether or not it was intended as such), as it gives the viewer a window into the sport, visually as well as from the athletes' perspective. And, it accomplishes all this making use of very little footage, concise interviews, and a classical soundtrack–quite different from the norm. Much like the series of videos that Oxford produced last year during the lead-up to the 2012 Boat Race (you can view the whole series of seven videos here ), this short film gets at just what rowing is all about–it is, well, beautiful. RR readers:  Have a recruiting video you want us to see? Ship it our way! Don't have one? Create one! Let us know in the comments on this post, via email at rowingrelated [at] gmail [dot] com, via Twitter ( twitter.com/rowingrelated ), or get in touch via our Facebook or Google+ pages. Should we gather enough responses, we will pic...

This week's (slightly delayed) VOTW comes to us from the 2011 Henley Royal Regatta, and features the undefeated Cal frosh eight taking on Nereus in the Temple Challenge Cup final on Sunday, 3rd July. The video is shot from the official's launch, and gives the viewer both a sense of just how good the Bears were last season, as well as a virtual tour of the HRR course, form start to finish. For more content about Henley 2011, check out the 'On The Water' series –personal take on the regatta and the racing–that we put together with Matt Miller of Virginia men's rowing (The UVa men raced to Saturday in the Temple, when they were defeated by Nereus). Also, today marks the first day of Movember, giving men everywhere an excuse to grow facial hair in order to raise awareness for prostate cancer research. See below for some inspiration: CHALLENGE TO ROWERS: SUBMIT YOUR OWN Movember video to RR! Here at RR, we are awaiting attempts from rowers to come up with qualit...