HAVE BOAT, WILL RACE

Frontiersman

Sometimes you just never know what a buddy is capable of talking you into.

On Saturday, Lance Baughman thought he was just going to take his Hudson single for a row across Lake Lucille. But before Baughman knew it, he was portaging the 27-pound boat through downtown Wasilla to become a late entrant in the Moose Nugget Regatta on Wasilla Lake.

“It was an impromptu thing,” Baughman said with a laugh a few hours after finishing fifth in the men’s single scull division.

Earlier Saturday, as Baughman and his friend, Brad Farnsworth, figured out the Anchorage Rowing Association was hosting its ninth annual Moose Nugget Regatta on Wasilla Lake, Farnsworth — who is visiting from Spokane, Wash. — conned Baughman to throw his hat in the ring and boat in the water. Baughman wasn’t exactly prepared for the spur-of-the-moment urge to compete. The car carrier he typically uses to transport his boat is in Anchorage. So the 54-year-old Wasilla man decided to do it the old fashioned way, carry the boat between bodies of water.

Baughman rowed his single to the Lake Lucille shore closest to his destination and carried the boat down side streets and through the underpass below the Parks Highway.

“It’s only 27 pounds, it wasn’t a big deal,” Baughman said.

Baughman didn’t get too many strange looks, but one passer-by felt the need to tell him where the lake was. Once he hit the regatta, Baughman entered the field with four other singles.

Baughman said he entered strictly for the entertainment value.

“It’s fun to be out on the water,” Baughman said. “It was fun. I haven’t raced since 1979.

But he did figure out things are a little bit different from when he and Farnsworth were on the University of Oregon rowing team about three decades ago.

“It let me know how bad of shape I’m in,” Baughman said.

Baughman’s not sure if his regatta experience sparked any hidden desires to return to a life of regular competition. He said he breaks the boat out once or twice a week, and that may increase when and if he gets the chance to retire.

Baughman was one of about 120 to compete on Saturday in 47 different boats and 15 separate races. The regatta, Anchorage Rowing Association’s biggest event of the year, has made a home at Wasilla Lake after using Lake Lucille as its stage for the first six years of the event’s nine-year run in the Mat-Su.

Regatta organizer Ed Hall said Wasilla Lake is the ideal place to hold the event.

“This is the perfect, perfect venue,” Hall said Saturday afternoon. “There’s an awesome parks department (here). With this park, there’s the ability to see the entire finish, stretch out and have all the teams with their boats right on the shore. This layout, we could put a master’s nationals on this lake, if it wasn’t 3,000 miles between here and Seattle. It’s an ideal rowing lake.”

Hall said the neighborly attitude of the homeowners on the lake and limited float plane traffic also helps.

“We couldn’t do this in Anchorage,” Hall said.

The bulk of those competing Saturday hail from the Anchorage Rowing Association, but rowers from Seward, Kenai, Soldotna and Cordova also participated.

A pair of rowers who compete for Princeton University also participated.

There wasn’t a big Valley contingent, but Hall said she hopes that changes in the future. Hall said there has been casual interest in the past, but she would love to find someone ready to spearhead the creation of a Valley-based rowing club. Hall said the Anchorage club would even be willing to give interested Valley folks lessons after the regatta next year.

For more information about the Anchorage club, see anchoragerowing.com.

Contact Frontiersman sports editor Jeremiah Bartz at sports@frontiersman.com.

2010 Moose Nugget Regatta

Saturday, Wasilla Lake

Team scores:

1. Anchorage Rowing Association 108; 2. Alaska Midnight Sun Rowing Association 73; 3. Kenai Crewsers Rowing Club 62; 4. Princeton; 5. Cordova Rowing Club; 5. (tie) Wasilla.

Mixed 4x — 1. AMSRA 3:45.7; 2. ARA 3:49.5; 3. KSRC 3:50.9; 4. ADA 4:10.0.

Women’s 1x — 1. Princeton 4:18.5; 2. AMSRA 4:36.3; 3. KCRC 4:37.7.

Novice women’s 8x — 1. KCRC 4:40.4; 2. ARA 4:56.9.

Men’s 4x — 1. ARA 3:29.5; 2. AMSRA 3:35.8; 3. ARA 4:14.6.

Women’s 2- — 1. KCRC 4:43.0.

Women’s 8+ — 1. ARA 3:49.6; 2. AMSRA 3:55.4; 3. KCRC 4:08.0; 4. ARA 4:09.9.

Men’s 2x — 1. ARA 4:01.4; 2. AMSRA 4:01.8; 3. ARA 4:12.8; 4. ARA 4:54.2.

Novice women’s 4+ — 1. AMSRA/KCRC 5:09.9; 2. ARA 5:14.6.

Junior women’s 4+ — 1. ARA 5:45.6.

Junior’s 1x — 1. ARA 5:58.0.

Men’s 1x — 1. AMSRA 4:31.1; 2. ARA 4:41.7; 3. ARA 4:42.8; 4. AMSRA 4:46.4; 5. ARA 4:42.8; 6. Wasilla 5:56.9.

Women’s 4x — 1. AMSRA 4:19.9; 2. ARA 4:24.1; 3. KCRC 4:39.5; 4. 4:58.1.

Novice women’s 4x — 1. ARA 5:28.1.

Recreational women’s 1x — 1. KCRC 5:41.6; 2. 5:45.2.

Mixed 2x — 1. AMSRA 4:33.5; 2. KCRC 4:31.5; 3. AMSRA 5:02.8; 4. ARA 5:24.9.

Women’s 4+ — 1. ARA 4:27.5; 2. KCRC 4:45.7; 3. AMSRA 4:48.4; 4. ARA 5:09.3; 5. ARA 5:09.3.

Women’s 8+ — 1. ARA 4:07.1; 2. KCRC 4:22.7.

Women’s 2x — 1. AMSRA 4:20.1; 2. Princeton 4:40.1; 3. AMSRA 4:44.9; 4. KCRC 4:53.6.

Mixed novice 4+ — 1. KCRC 6:14.9; 2. 6:19.6.

Junior mixed 4+ — 1. ARA 5:50.9; 2.

Mixed 8+ — 1. ARA 3:59.0; 2. ARA 4:03.3; 3. AMSRA 4:07.6; 4. KCRC 4:11.6; 5. ARA 4:22.3.