To row in Richardson Bay is one of the more spectacular things you can do with your day. To row past the Golden Gate Bridge is beyond spectacular. There probably aren’t words to convey how awe inspiring it can be. It can also be a bit scary. Rough water is dangerous if you don’t know what you’re doing. But Stefan Benton loves it. He’s the guy that coaches rowers how to row past Yellow Bluff, past Cavallo Point, and beyond the gate—something that should never be done alone.
Stefan teaches the OWRC rough water clinic, which is offered multiple times throughout the year (keep an eye out for clinic date announcements here on our website, and on Instagram: @openwaterrowingcenter). If you want to row past Belvedere point or the Sewage Treatment Plant -- something you won’t ever see unless you’re on the water -- you must pass this clinic first. And Stefan’s the guy to trust. He’s been teaching the clinic at OWRC since the nineties. So long that he doesn’t remember how many people he’s taught.
“The goal of the clinic is to redefine your definition of rough water,” Stefan says. “We can handle so much more than other people can [in our sculls]. You can actually row thru this stuff,” he says. For those of us who aren’t Stefan, the clinic makes it less intimidating.
Stefan is an unabashed champion of open water rowing. He began his rowing career when he was 16 at St Ignatius high school in San Francisco. He fell in love with the sport when he saw SI’s boathouse on Lake Merced. Inside were Pocock wooden boats with wooden oars. “I remember putting Crisco on the oar locks to grease them up, so they’d feather and square smoothly.” He even liked doing that.
After high school, Stefan rowed for UCSB. In his first year, the university had found itself on the receiving end of hundreds of thousands of dollars of rowing equipment courtesy of the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics. Because they had one, his coach threw him into a Van Dusen racing single--a flat water boat. But he quickly learned to row in singles and doubles.
In his first summer away from school, Stefan worked at Horizon’s in Sausalito. That’s where he spotted rowers cruising by the restaurant. He discovered OWRC when it was in two shipping containers at the foot of Spring Street. He asked Shirwin Smith, the founder of OWRC, if he could have a job teaching sculling. She hired him to teach classes and the rest, somewhat, is history.
Eventually he graduated. “I often say to clients that I went to UCSB and majored in rowing, and I got a degree in psychology on the side.” Stefan is a licensed Marriage Family Therapist (MFT). He’s a patient and helpful guide navigating the whirling mix of the San Francisco Bay and Pacific Ocean waters under the Golden Gate bridge.
“I have a passion for this niche of the sport,” he says. “It’s so much more interesting to me. You have this giant playground of the SF bay and the variable terrain—the tides and winds. “I’ve been out of the Gate with rollers coming in that were probably 10 feet tall.”
If you take Stefan’s clinic, you’ll learn many of his important nuggets: “One of the things I say is that there is no good water or bad water, there’s only water. The boats will handle more than what most people will allow. People tend to tighten up and freak out. It’s about staying relaxed, knowing the technique, not fighting it and going with it,” he says.
With 40 years of experience to share, you'll get why some folks take the clinic a 2nd or 3rd time. It’s because the guy knows his stuff. “The shortest distance between two points on the bay is often not a straight line. Rowing is a sport of efficiency and knowing how to read the conditions, which will not only save you energy but can save your life.”
When the next Rough Water Clinic dates are announced, call the office to book your spot to join Stefan: 1.415.332.1091.