Staff Photo by Danielle Moore Bystanders watch from Market Street Bridge as rowing teams head down the Tennessee River on Saturday morning.
From sunrise to dusk Saturday the Tennessee River was filled with rowers racing against time.
The Head of the Hooch Regatta has more than 8,000 rowers participating in the races up and down the river, rowing a 31⁄2-mile stretch to compete for the best time.
“Our biggest challenge is to launch that many boats every day,” said Head of the Hooch assistant regatta director Doug Beville. “We’ll have to launch a boat every 27 seconds.”
On the sunny mid-60s day, Chattanooga hosted the nation’s second-largest rowing regatta for the fifth time, packing Ross’s Landing and the Walnut Street Bridge with about 15,000 spectators for the first day of races on Saturday, organizers said.
Along the river in Chattanooga is the perfect place to see these races and “when you have a beautiful day (like) today, we get great feedback,” Mr. Beville said.
Head of the Hooch rowers were mostly high school and college age, with about 15 percent being master rowers. The event is sponsored by the Lookout Rowing Club of Chattanooga and the Atlanta Rowing Club.
The Hooch originated in 1980 on the Chattahoochee River in Roswell, Ga., just north of Atlanta, before being moved to the Olympic venue in Gainesville, Ga. After outgrowing both Georgia sites, the event moved to Chattanooga in 2004.
The weekend event will generate more than $4 million in economic activity for the city, officials say.
However, the day did not go without a mishap when nine Louisville Rowing Club rowers had to be pulled from the river about 9 a.m. after their boat was knocked into a buoy and became swamped with water, said Lt. Dusty Rose with the Chattanooga Fire Department.
After the firefighters rescued the boaters, Hamilton County EMS checked them and found no injuries, he said.
An accident similar to Saturday morning’s is not uncommon for the Hooch races, Mr. Beville said. Usually at least one or two accidents occur each year.
“When you have that many boats on the water, you’re always going to have the opportunity for people to bump into one another,” he said.
And while the sky was clear and the weather warm on Saturday, the current was strong, moving about 50,000 gallons per second and making it difficult to row upstream, said Lookout Rowing club member Adrienne Powell.
“Going up the course is strenuous, but going down is really fast,” she said.
While this was Ms. Powell’s first year to compete in the race, all levels of skills participated, including high school to masters rowers from 30 states and Canada.
Locally the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga’s rowing team participated, taking home first place in the men’s novice team and 17th in the men’s varsity team.
“Races like this ... show us what areas we need to work on,” said Jorge Nieves, UTC varsity crew member.
Practicing for a race includes working out the whole body every weekday, including legs, arms and abs. The most strenuous workout is during the winter getting ready for spring competitions, Mr. Nieves said.
In the fall, the team learns where their greatest weaknesses are and how to correct them, he said. The Hooch is one of the biggest events the team participates in all year.
“(We) don’t think there’s a lot of people that row, until you come to an event like this,” he said.
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We had a great day watching and yelling and taking photos! This Saturday's event was far and away the best we've had since the event came to Chattanooga. And could the weather have been even a little bit better? No way! I salute the logisticians that pull this off so flawlessly.