Skullers Rowing competes in international events in 2023

It’s been quite a busy year for the Skullers Rowing Club! In February 2023, the team competed at the Sarasota Invitational and brought home a gold medal in the Mixed Double event. In May, they took a smaller team of two boys (Andrew Bowe & Phoenix Robinson) to compete in the 2nd Annual Copa America Coastal in Lima, Peru.

In September they compiled the largest ever national team to go to Barletta, Italy to compete in the Beach Sprints, which included 4 first time athletes: Alicia Adderley (15), Shannen McKinney (17), Kyara Adderley (14) and Xihanna Rolle (13).

Alicia competed in the Junior Women's Solo, while the other 3 girls served as alternates. The remainder of the team included Andrew Bowe (18 - Last year's Copa America Champion), Phoenix Robinson (15), and Renea Ingraham (16). The team improved over last year and has been very competitive with the best teams in the world.

The quartet of Alicia, Phoenix, Andrew and Renea also competed at the World Coastal Rowing Championships where they were by far the youngest team and were still competitive.

Membership increased this year by 50% bringing the total number of athletes to 25-30 active members. The future definitely looks bright for the club as they head into the next few years with Beach Sprints as an Olympic discipline at the 2026 Youth Olympics in Dakar, Senegal and the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles, California. Perhaps we will see some future Olympic athletes representing the Bahamas one day soon!

Skullers Rowing Club competes in Wales, UK

The World Rowing Beach Sprint Championships was held October 14-16th 2022 in Saundersfoot Beach in the Pembrokeshire National Park, Wales, UK. The Beach Sprint is a new up and coming rowing format which consists of shorter and faster sprint-type events in a coastal environment (opposed to flat water). This October event was the third event to be hosted in this category, ever. Coach Michael Knowles and four junior athletes from George Town, Exuma traveled to this event where athletes ages 14-17 competed in a challenging open-seas environment. The Skullers Rowing Club was the youngest team there, adding to the challenge. Two of the athletes were the first Bahamians to ever medal in a rowing event in Peru earlier this year.

The event is unlike other rowing events in that athletes must rely on speed and dexterity. The beach-start entails a 10-50m sprint to the boat, a 250m row-sprint out to a slalom course, a row-sprint back to beach, and a sprint to the finish line.

While the team didn’t win any medals, they were grateful to have taken valuable lessons home from the experience. This is still new and developing event and the team is pacing themselves for long term goals to include more strength training and practices as they prepare for the Commonwealth Rowing Association Championships in Namibia, December 2-4, 2022.

The team is also preparing for several events in 2023 including the Sarasota Invitational in February and the Copa America Championships, which is a major regional event for Central & South America and the Caribbean, held in Lima, Peru.

The Skullers Rowing Club is grateful for the support they receive throughout the year from organizations such as Friends of Exuma, which makes it possible to compete in these international events. Michael Knowles comments “It’s been a struggle to get to this point and it’s gratifying to see things start to pay off. The athletes put in a huge amount of work and are finally starting to see results of their labor.”