Cape Fear River Rowing Club History

CFRRC celebrated it twentieth anniversary in 2009. In 1989, Thomas Wright, III, provided the first modern boathouse and waterfront property and helped launch the Cape Fear River Rowing Club in 1989. Ten years later however, the property at the foot of Nun Street was sold to make way for residential development and the club sought a new location. Upon learning of their predicament, Bill Kaylor, owner of the Pointe Harbor Marina offered CFRRC waterfront access and eventually built and leased a building to use as a boathouse.  Sweep rowers from CFRRC launch from Pointe Harbor Marina and grace the Wilmington waterfront on a bi-weekly basis. In the spring of 2009, CFRRC moved its sculling facility to the Wilmington Marine Center at the invitation of Skip Fry, General Manager. The club's relocation was completed when the sweep boats and launch dock were moved to WMC at the beginning of 2010.

CFRRC now offers rowers both single oar rowing (sweeps) and two-oar sculling at its two locations. The fleet of boats ranges from recreational single sculling shells to an eight-man rowing shell with coxswain. The club also owns 75 feet of floating docks, a boat trailer and a full complement of oars. CFRRC has many dedicated members who continue to provide a strong support.

Rowing in the Cape Fear area is a time-honored sport. This Wilmington Star newspaper article appeared May 29, 1875 and expressed the benefits of rowing, as true today as they were then:

"A rowing club for our city is the newest. Our suggestion made a few days ago has met with the endorsement of several gentlemen, great lovers of the art of rowing, who appear to see more fascination in a long pull, a strong pull, and a pull altogether than in the excitement of a yacht race and the consequent anticipation of an imperative order to jump out, climb on the bottom and hurrah for help. There really seems to be sufficient material in our city for such a club. It will add much to the variety of the aquatic sports in our section, besides the benefits that will be derived from rowing, which is a healthful, invigorating exercise. We have often thought, while paddling a canoe along the serpentine course of Alligator Creek, in search of new worlds to conquer, that if it was only reduced to a science, how much better it would be. The rowing club will, we think, be a favored institution, as combining pleasure and healthful exercise."