Treffen vom 29.09. bis 02.10.2017
Day 1: From Rosenheim to Wasserburg - a rowing event on the Inn River
Saturday, September 30, 2017, 6.30h Get up in joyful anticipation!
Today is the first day of an auspicious three days of rowing by the International Fellowship of Rowing Rotarians, a fledgling association of rowing Rotarians that combines sport, nature experience and Rotarian friendship.
After the details and organizational steps for the next three days were discussed at dinner the night before and the last of the teams had arrived in Rosenheim by midnight, we can now get started!
7 o'clock breakfast, a last straightening of the necessary utensils and then it goes to the boathouse of the Rosenheim rowing club. This should not hide the fact that the realization of these rowing trips on the Inn had already experienced many months of meticulous preparations, so on the one hand by the friend Paul Geisenhofer of the RC Rosenheim-Innstadt on the spot, as well as the friends Hartmut Jaeger and Wolfgang Litzenburger of the RC Mainz, who took over the coordination for the members of the Fellowship.
Impressive for the "out-of-town" rowers from various rowing and Rotary clubs from Mainz, Worms, Darmstadt, Simmern, Frankfurt and Prien were the wonderful, very well equipped and maintained boat and rowing house on the banks of the Inn. The still relatively young rowing club has created this with a lot of commitment and own work, many of the rowing boats were lovingly reworked "second hand" and made available to the out-of-town rowers generously and well prepared.
After the usual preparations of the boats, four gig boats could then be brought to the northern limit of the Rosenheim barrage with special "boat transport racks" and then be launched.
Since the Inn, in contrary to the Rhine, on which most of the guests usually row, is provided with many barrages, two of these "transport racks were also carried along with the boats. Perhaps this explains why we did not encounter any other boats - neither rowboats nor canoes - on the Inn during the following two days. The transports of the boats around the respective barrages are necessary several times a day and quite demanding, since the places for disembarking and embarking or lifting out and putting down the rowing boat can be quite complex. On the other hand, these activities were rewarded by the wonderful, lonely and quiet nature that the Inn offers without any other boat activity. Few rivers in Germany seem as sparsely populated and natural as the Inn, even between two smaller towns like Rosenheim and Wasserburg.
The "rowing feeling" was characterized by the friendly and affectionate interaction of Rotarian friends, some of whom met here for the first time. Especially when the "rowing rhythm" could really flow, there was also an "enthusiasm in the moment" that "mono-sports" cannot offer. Watching storks and herons gliding over the Inn then had a special magic in it.
Saturday was marked by 32 kilometers of rowing, but quite interrupted by convivial breaks, such as a midday snack in the Fischerstübel below the monastery Attel. Even if its official address is "Elend 1", the mood of the IFFoR troop among the Rotarians was exuberant and enthusiastic.
The arrival in the evening at the rowing club Babensham-Wasserburg was obligatory connected with the preparation of the boats, sculls and utensils for the night, because on Sunday morning it should go from here immediately further the Inn to the north.
The evening itself was then spent in the magnificent historic old town of Wasserburg and at the convivial dinner the day could be relived in conversation, before one could then already look forward to the next rowing day.
Jochen Blum
RC Mainz
