Page 8 - French and Electric Blue - Winter 2017-2018

“We took to the Charles, usually in Military team promised to be back next year for a
daylight, but sometimes in darkness with beacons
on the boat to get that coordination down,” he
said. “I’ll tell you, rowing on the water takes some
doing, and I struggled, but the veteran rowers
showed patience and guidance and in time I felt
like I was part of the boat.”
The team commenced the season by
competing in the CRI Fall Classic on September
16. The three mile race begins by the Harvard
boathouse, continues past the Northeastern
University boathouse and finishes past CRI. The
Crew maintained a stroke rating of 26-28 strokes
per minute and finished the course with a time of
21:53, good for fifth place out of the six competing
boats.
The MSP Crew also had the honor of
competing head-to-head against CRI’s Military
Rowing team. The CRI Military team offers free
rowing programs for all active duty, reservists,
veterans, Gold Star spouses, and spouses of active
duty service members. On a 1,250-meter stretch
by the CRI boathouse, the two crews lined up
MSP Crew with CRI Military Rowing Team
side by side on a rainy day with calm flat water.
The Military team coach called “Attention, GO!”
and the teams took off averaging 30-32 strokes
per minute. The MSP team quickly established a
one boat length lead within the first 200 meters
and built upon that en route to a great win. The
F r en c h·a n d·E le c t r ic·B l ue·W in t er·2017/2018·p a g e·8
rematch in what could be the making of an annual
event.
For the first year, the MSP Crew partnered
with the charity Cops for Kids with Cancer and
raised money by selling shirts, hats, and pins
with the team’s new MSP Crew logo. Three
seat Trooper Pat Moynihan took charge of the
fundraising effort.
“If there was a way to support kids and
their families going through tough times, we
wanted to help,” Trooper Moynihan said. “The
team worked with Poptop Sportswear to create
and sell Massachusetts State Police Crew gear.
Poptop made the process easy and the gear looks
great! We are very happy with the outcome and
will be presenting the charity with a check soon.
The team is very grateful to all the donors.”
Trooper Moynihan also looks forward
to the future of the team and bringing in some
international competitors.
“This season also brought about
conversations with the board of directors of the
Head of the Charles Regatta about having a race
in the 2018 Regatta just for first responders.
After a thorough search for first responder crew
teams across the country, we realized that we are
the only first responder team in the U.S. After
expanding our search overseas, we’re excited that
multiple international teams including Cairo
Police Crew Club from Egypt, Garda from Ireland,
and Police Scotland are considering making the
trip to compete with us next year. We’ve contacted
other departments and are excited to see what
happens.”
Looking forward, the Crew is looking to
expand and grow. The Head of the Charles and
many other races throughout the Commonwealth
are separated by age, gender, and skill level, so
everyone committed to the team gets a chance to
race competitively. The team currently competes
in the Masters Men’s category, which is when