Senior Rachael Stryer is one of the coxswain for the WJ Crew Team. Crew is an athletic club team at WJ that competes in a variety of races, called regattas, against other schools across the county, nation and, occasionally, the world. This fall season, the club has 63 members, but both varsity women and men’s coaches Emma Green and Davis Bales are expecting to recruit even more for the spring. This is Stryer’s fourth year on Crew.

What do you think sets Crew apart from other sports?

Well, the thing that’s really cool about Crew is that we get to go out on to the water every day [and] when everybody else goes home or plays in the stadium here, we’re out on the water rowing on a river with lots of trees. It’s really cool [that] we get to go and compete against teams from all over the country and really all over the world at some regattas which is really neat.

What made you decide to join Crew?

I joined in winter of my freshman year… Crew is great because I get to think like an athlete and be an athlete and still compete at the highest levels. I’m also really short.

How is the season going so far?

It’s really good. We have a fall season and a spring season. Our fall season is not as intense; it’s not our competition season. In the fall season, we do longer races and then in the spring is our championship season with shorter races. We’re really excited and [it has gotten] off to a pretty good start. We have a lot of depth this year which we haven’t had before on the girls side, and the boys team did really well at their first regatta.

What does a typical practice include?

Usually we go out to Bladensburg, Md. [which] is a 30-40 minute bus ride there. We get out at usually 3:30 [p.m.]. We have to set up our boat and our coaches launches [the motor boats they use to follow us on the water],  and get our oars down. We do a 20 minute warm-up run, [stretch] and then we get out into the water. Once we’re on the water, we’ll do a warm-up working with blades and getting everybody’s blades together.

What do you usually do at a regatta?

There are lots of different types of regattas. We race in smaller regattas against one or two teams or bigger regattas. Typically what we do is, once everybody is warmed up, [we] roll up to the starting line [and] line up against other teams. If it’s a bigger regatta , there’s something called a stake boat which you have to back into and hold onto to make sure you’re perfectly aligned. They call the start and you race down.