Marietta High School crew team loses docks
Photo by Michael Kelly The Muskingum River, seen from the Putnam Bridge Wednesday afternoon, bears massive floes of ice toward the Ohio River in Marietta.
Photo by Michael Kelly Slabs of ice linger in trees along the east bank of the Muskingum River in Marietta, a sign of how high the water surged last week when the Marietta High School rowing club docks were torn from their moorings and washed down the river.
Photo by Michael Kelly Parts of the River Trail along the Marietta waterfront have been closed after the Muskingum River rose during cold weather and left masses of ice along it.
Photo by Michael Kelly The Muskingum River, seen from the Putnam Bridge Wednesday afternoon, bears massive floes of ice toward the Ohio River in Marietta.
Photo by Michael Kelly Slabs of ice linger in trees along the east bank of the Muskingum River in Marietta, a sign of how high the water surged last week when the Marietta High School rowing club docks were torn from their moorings and washed down the river.
Photo by Michael Kelly Parts of the River Trail along the Marietta waterfront have been closed after the Muskingum River rose during cold weather and left masses of ice along it.
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MARIETTA -- The coach for the Marietta High School rowing team described it as a perfect storm.
On Friday, ice breaking up on the Muskingum River propelled by the rain-swollen river -- and helped by a couple of logs -- tore the club's docks away from the bank.
The docks at the Carl Broughton Boat House, 814 Gilman St., had been there and withstood weather of every sort since 2000, Cliff Hecker said.
When the 180-foot structure broke loose, he said, a group got out on the water and managed to tie up to the unmoored structure at the Putnam Bridge and started towing it back up the river.
"Another sheet of ice, almost as wide as the river, came down and stopped us," he said. "We had to abandon it for personal safety."
Getting back to the boathouse, less than a mile upriver, took 40 minutes, he said.
The last they've heard of the dock, Hecker said, was late Sunday, when it was seen headed past Blennerhassett Island, broken into four sections.
The program at the high school, which includes about 64 students between the boys crew and the girls, is left in a problematic position.
Hecker said that although Marietta College will allow the use of its docks for the high school teams' rowing practices, those won't serve for a major annual competition, the Lindamood Regatta, coming April 7.
At a board meeting Monday night, he said, the events were reviewed, and the group was informed that although the docks were insured, the insurance didn't cover an act of nature.
"These are not your typical docks," he said. "They're actually low-profile rowing docks, and it takes special floats to hold the weight and keep them buoyant."
Hecker said they probably could have withstood the flooding and ice, but it was probably the impact of the logs that tore them loose.
"They were held by half-inch steel cables," he said.
To replace the docks would probably cost $100,000, he said, but club members are willing to do the labor and travel to transport the parts -- the docks come in 18-foot sections, held together with big pins -- so the only money the club needs is for materials, which he estimated will cost about $30,000.
The club is taking donations at tigernavyemails.wixsite.com.
Hecker said it's a cause worthy of community support. For students who row, it's not just an extracurricular activity that fits well with the Mid-Ohio Valley's native landscape, but also a promising avenue to post-secondary education help.
"On this crew, the kids are 40 percent more likely to get scholarships than all the other sports combined," he said. And the sport offers the ability to race for a national title every year, Hecker said.
The Marietta club travels extensively because of the nature of the competition, he said. They scrimmage with the only other local clubs, Parkersburg and Parkersburg South, but nearly always travel at least two or three hours to competitions.
"We literally go all over the place," Hecker said. "Michigan, Knoxville, last year we went to a regatta in Buffalo, N.Y."
This year they are scheduled to race in Zanesville, Oak Ridge, Tenn., Philadelphia, Pa., and Camden, N.J.
"We've already started conditioning for spring, and our goal is to get on the water as early in March as possible," he said.
The ice and flooding that tore the dock away inflicted damage all up the river, flooding parts of Morgan County and surging up onto areas of the Marietta River Trail, leaving slabs of ice and frozen sections that are closed until the footing becomes safe.
"There is a massive amount of ice on the bike path, and we just want to avoid situations where everyone is slipping and falling down," said Tanner Huffman of the Marietta city parks department. "We've got signs in front of the hazards and they're sandbagged so they don't blow over. We just want to keep everybody safe. There is just an unbelievable amount of ice."