The False Creek Rowing Club is up the creek without a home. And now members of the club and their supporters are disappointed a proposed paddling and rowing facility on False Creek may not include them.
Rowers on the waterway do not have access to proper launch docks, nearby washrooms or a place to store boats, safety equipment and gear.
They change in their cars and transport their gear back and forth.
False Creek Rowing Club president Simon Litherland said he has been working with the city and the paddling community since 2006 to have a boathouse built on False Creek.
Since that time, he said the rowers who used the waters have dispersed, thanks in part to a UBC boathouse being built in Richmond, but the interest is still there among the rowers in his club — about 50 rowers and volunteers — and among urban recreational rowers.
The club held its forth-annual “Head up the Creek” regatta Sunday, which launched from Vanier Park, that attracted 160 rowers in 50 boats including specially modified boats for several wheelchair rowers. Litherland said the event attracted thousands of spectators.
A combined paddling and rowing facility looked possible last year when the city set aside $125,000 for a report to define the requirements for such a facility to be located at the east end of False Creek.
But earlier this month Litherland was told senior city staff were not interested in including facilities for rowing because the waterway has no permanent rowing program.
Peter Jackson, president of Rowing B.C. said it is a chicken and egg situation.
The city doesn’t seem to want to create a False Creek facility for rowers because it lacks a huge rowing presence, but rowers need a facility to row there in significant numbers, he said.
“The creek has had Vancouver College and St. George’s and UBC men and UBC women and the Thunderbirds rowing club and Go Rowing so all those programs have been operating with a number of participants and they have [almost] all moved away because of the lack of facilities,” said Jackson.
While some have gone to the UBC Boathouse in Richmond, that facility doesn’t service Vancouver well, he said.
As it stands, a paddling facility, without the rowers, will likely go ahead.
That’s good news for the approximately 4,000 dragon boaters who use False Creek, according to Ann Phelps, manager of the Canadian International Dragon Boat Festival Society.
“There seems to be a lot of push now to put the paddling centre into False Creek and we are working with the city,” Phelps said.
She hopes that rowing will be included again in later planning stages.
“There is a big demand for rowing, especially recreational,” she said.
At a meeting last week with the park board director of recreation Thomas Soulliere, Litherland proposed a second facility location option at Vanier Park, but has yet to hear back.
He said while a Vanier location would be better than nothing,
It is not ideal for people dependent on transit. He argued the east end of False Creek by Science World is still the far better option for rowing.
“It has stunning potential as the most accessible urban water way in Canada,” Litherland told the Courier by email.
Soulliere said he could not yet comment because options were still being explored.
The next False Creek boat house meeting with the city will be March 13.
