Squad sent ashore in dangerous weather

It was as if Poseidon had been snubbed by one of the crews and was unleashing his wrath. Furious gusts and fierce rain turned Cincinnati's Lake Harsha into a turbulent swirl unsafe for rowing. It is the first time an IU race was canceled due to foul weather. \nIU assistant coach Fran O'Rourke said regattas are "very rarely" called off, but the conditions were unlike anything she has ever seen in rowing. The wind was "ridiculous" but the water "rowable," so O'Rourke sent forth her Novice 8 and two Varsity 4s for the initial events. But things quickly worsened. \n"As soon as the Varsity 4s launched off the docks, the wind started picking up like crazy," O'Rourke said. "It wasn't good to begin with, and then it just started going nuts."\nO'Rourke was in a motor boat, called a launch, in which coaches follow and observe their teams. But even the launch struggled in the whitecaps on the squally lake.\n"I was having a hard time getting my launch to go through the waves and was having trouble steering," she said. "The 4s were getting blown all over the place. I was like 'Oh, my gosh, these kids can't row.'\n"I was trying to get to the IU boats and tell them 'Turn around. I'm not putting you guys out in this. I don't want you rowing. I don't think it's safe.' Then I was going to head in and tell (IU coach) Steve (Peterson) 'Steve, I'm sorry. I just couldn't put them out like that.' By then Cincinnati's head coach was coming back in and corralling everybody and getting them off the water."\nO'Rourke said the decision to cancel the race was made by Peterson and the head coaches from Cincinnati, Dayton and Eastern Michigan. \nPeterson faced a similar decision when a severe drop in temperature forced him to take the team to the gym for a practice recently. He wanted his boats on the water but knows when rowers are at risk. \n"They think more about surviving than about rowing," he said at the time. \nThe Hoosiers overcame a swelling Potomac River a week ago to edge George Washington University. Until Saturday in Cincinnati, though, the roughest water IU encountered was its home venue. \n"The worst was when we got waked by a fishing boat on Lake Lemon," junior Laura Lazaridas said last week when asked to rate the experience on surging Potomac. "The boat was filled with water."\nIU headed to Cincinnati after an attitude adjustment and was eager to get on the line. The team had planned to kick butt and not even to bother taking names later. O'Rourke said the Varsity 8, trying to stay warm and dry inside a boathouse, was disappointed the conditions were not better. \n"They were kind of bummed," she said. "But when they saw that the Novice 8 was pretty close to swamping and the crew was soaked, in 39 degrees with a bruising wind, they were like 'Oh, OK.'"\nThe cream and crimson will be able to combine the mood with the muscle at the Indiana State Championships on Eagle Creek in Indianapolis this Saturday. \n-- Contact Staff Writer Bill Meehan at wmeehan@indiana.edu.