Black Thursday

I was there

By Philip Irvin

It has been suggested that I write up an account of Black Thursday, an event in the distant past of the WSU rowing team, because—I was there.

I was considering joining the fledgling WSU rowing crew when the shell house collapsed in a windstorm, crushing all of the shells and, I thought, the idea for a rowing team.

Now the design for the shell house was a class competition/class project for a WSU architecture class. It was chosen as the very best design that all of the class members could come up with and the plans had been reviewed and approved by the instructor. When the structure did such a spectacular failure, nobody in that architecture class could find employment in their field and most went on to be either stucco installers or diesel mechanics. Regardless the team reconstructed the shell house, likely without any advice from the Architecture department, begged some additional hulks of boats from the UW and was back on the water.

The team was able to sport three boats; a “senior” boat for the elite of the team, such as they were, a lightweight boat and a freshman boat for whoever was left over. While you would think it a ridiculous claim if you were to see me now, I starved myself down and rowed in the lightweight boat.

Don’t you hate it when a person says, “I don’t mean to brag . . .?” Certainly I want to brag. One time in a race in Bellingham our boat actually came in fifth out of sixth. A stellar accomplishment for the team. These were the heady days for the club when we believed that, apart from victory, anything was possible. As our shell house was by the construction site of the Lower Granite Dam we could, proudly and with all certainty, proclaim, “We’re the best crew by a dam site!”

For spring vacation 1973 we stayed on campus and participated in a training regime. During the morning we rowed on the river. I can still hear the melodious voice of our coxswain singing out a stream of encouragement that began, “Power ten!” After the morning workout we would return and climb the stadium stairs. We would go up and down and up, down, up, down. To provide some mental variety we could sing to ourselves, “100 bottles of beer in the wall.” I still don’t know how climbing stairs was supposed to improve our rowing finesse but there were stairs and someone had to ascend them to justify their existence.

This regime continued until Thursday morning. In those days there was no Internet to check the weather throughout the day and, after checking the forecast in the newspaper in the morning, you could not even be certain that there even would be any weather at all later in the day.

It was a glorious morning and we rowed up the river more than previous mornings. Once we had gone as far as we could, the weather started turning ominous with increasing black clouds and wind. We rowed furiously back to the shell house (as if our coxswains were allowing a leisurely row before) and came to a spot of seriously choppy water near the shell house. The first of the three boats went through escorted by the coach’s launch to help if there was difficulty and the launch returned. By now the water was much more choppy and the second boat that I was in went through. The shell was swamping and, as shells are so close to the water anyway, it was difficult getting our oars out of the water to row. A difficult experience and likely a harrowing one for everyone else on the crew but me.

By now the waves were so choppy that it was too risky to row the third boat back so crewmembers were ferried to the dock. I volunteered to go back with Coach Bob Orr to tow the remaining shell.

Upon returning the shell, we tied a rope to an outrigger. The word, “we” in the preceding sentence can be the royal we (i.e. “me”), it could refer to Bob Orr and myself; it could refer to the whole team or even all the students and staff at WSU. The point to be remembered in this use of “we” is that culpability for what happened should be as diffuse as possible.

Now there are two ends of an outrigger, the end close to the shell and the end away from it. If a rope is attached to the end close to the shell and towed, the shell has a reasonable chance of gracefully cutting through the water when towed. If the rope is affixed to the outside end of the outrigger, the shell will turn perpendicular to the direction of tow and cut through the water with all the grace and beauty of a 90-foot wide gang-plow. I might add that there is nothing between the near and far end of an outrigger to prevent an obstinate rope from sliding between these points.

Further it should be pointed out that all rope I have ever come in contact with has been terribly stupid. You can explain to a rope where it is supposed to be tied and it will sit there as if totally oblivious of what you are trying to communicate; this rope was more thick than most.

So when I tied the rope to the proximal end of the outrigger and the shell was towed, the stupid, obstinate and, I might add, cowardly rope slipped from the near end of the outrigger and proceeded to the outside edge and the shell tried to cut a deep swath through the water rather than a narrow groove.

As this was not working we, (as in “Bob Orr and I,”) went back to reattach the rope. With slack on rope the shell sensed a newfound freedom and flipped upside down.

Now a shell is made to sit in the water only one way and consists of a paper-thin shell and only sufficient structural members to support the shell and the interface with the oarsmen. When placed upside down and exposed to waves from the opposite direction, the skin of the shell did not know what to do and started falling apart. Any efforts at towing were doomed. The remains of the shell were dragged to the shore, the rest of the team were alerted to the predicament and they came along the shore to our aid.

Most of the crews of three shells carried the remains of one back to the shell house along the riprap on the shore. As everyone else had shoes on and I had only socks I was at a bit of a disadvantage in helping but, for some reason, I really didn’t feel like standing out from everyone else at that point.

We got back to the shell house finishing up somewhere around 4:30 at which time Coach Bob Orr shouted a command that everyone there clearly remembers to this day: It will forever be associated with these events. He announced, “Afternoon practice is cancelled.”

And for those of you who were also there and remember things differently I reply: You embellish your story your way and I will embellish mine my way. That’s my story and I’m sticking with it.