Ancient Mariners add a glint of silver to Opening Day

At a distance from the shore, you might mistake the age of the guys in the four boats in this morning's first crew race on Opening Day of boating season.

Their boats will glide through the Montlake Cut, and their oars will catch the water in unison, just like those manned by buff college kids.

But on closer look, when they pull up at the dock, their bald heads, white hair, bifocal and trifocal glasses, and sometimes a pot belly, give away the old guys.

Some of them will even be checking heartbeat monitors they wear around their wrists.

When you're 81 and had a quadruple bypass, such as is the case with Rod Johnson, a retired contractor from Bellevue, you know your limitations.

Johnson is a member of the Ancient Mariners Rowing Club, based out of the Pocock Rowing Center by the University Bridge.

The 10:20 a.m. race features three boats from that club, and one boat manned by old guys from the Marin Rowing Club of California. The average age of the crews has to be 70 or above.

Old guys can be a determined lot, especially old guys whose college crew racing days were in the 1940s and 1950s.

It's this thing about committing and coming through for your teammates, which is embedded in crew races.

And for the old guys, it's also a lot about a term they use in trying to explain why three times a week, 52 weeks a year, even on Thanksgiving Day and sometimes on Christmas Day, even if it's cold, rainy and freezing, by 5:30 in the morning they're hitting the water at the rowing center.

"It's the camaraderie of the group," Johnson says.

By that he means guys asking each other how things are going, maybe remembering that eagle they saw soaring along Portage Bay during practice, maybe going to the Burgermaster by the University Village for breakfast.

Being guys, the talk isn't what you'd call "philosophical," Johnson says. Talking is actually frowned upon as distracting when in the boat.

A bond most of them have is remembering when they were college kids and racing.

Johnson spent 1946 to 1950 on the University of Washington's crew team.

The 1930s into the 1950s were the UW team's glory years, with front-page coverage in the dailies.

At the 1936 Summer Olympics in Germany, the Huskies' eight-oared crew defeated the highly favored teams from Germany and Italy in front of Adolf Hitler.

Johnson was included in a June 20, 1949, Life magazine feature on the UW crew team. The headline was, "They have dominated collegiate shell racing for 13 years ... "

The story said, "Although no prospective Washington oarsman receives special inducements, some 350 men reported for practice this year — more than ever turn out for football, which offers campus jobs, scholastic aid and personal glory."

Ann Geier has been the coach of the Ancient Mariners for the past two years. She fell in love with rowing as a high-school student in Philadelphia.

"They'd never dream of calling it this," she says, "but it's a men's support group. As they get older, they really like to check in with each other, making sure everybody is still around."

The Ancient Mariners got their start in 1988.

"We knew a lot of ex-oarsmen from all over the country who had settled here in Seattle, and began contacting them.

"Then Emmett Watson (the late columnist for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer and then The Seattle Times) wrote about us, and more people called to join," says Guy Harper, 76, of Burien, a retired aluminum salesman.

Many of those contacted hadn't rowed since their college days.

It took a couple of years to get back in shape, says Art Wright, 74, a geophysicist who still puts in full working days.

He says the old guys are careful about checking with their doctors.

But, let's say the heart gives out while you're rowing on a sunny morning like we've been having this week.

"If you have to go, what the hell," Wright says.

The club now has about 40 members, with around two dozen showing up for practices.

They've done all right in life. Their current or former occupations include high-school principal, engineer, stockbroker and attorney.

This morning, the Ancient Mariners will race 2,000 meters, which is a little over 18 football-field lengths.

Wright says their time will be around 8 minutes, while a college crew would come in at 5 ½ minutes.

Says their coach about what she thinks happens to the guys when they push the boat off the dock and start rowing, especially on mornings like this week's, when dawn greets a glorious, sunny day:

"How lovely it is at this time of the year.

"It's completely quiet, and the only people insane to be out there are the rowers. It's silent except for the sound of oars going into the water.

"For an hour and a half, they're in their own world. It's a world that all rowers have.

"You're at one with the water and the boat. I know this sounds mystical, but it's the world that all rowers have."

Erik Lacitis: 206-464-2237 or elacitis@seattletimes.com