Bangor code enforcement director among Mainers competing in world boat races

Jeff Wallace’s job can certainly be stressful.

The Northeast Harbor native is the director of code enforcement for the city of Bangor.

His job is to make sure buildings, residential and commercial, meet all the safety codes and requirements established by the city.

It is a job that certainly has its share of challenges.

But Wallace has a new stress-relieving passion that has taken him to a group of five inhabited  islands off the southwestern coast of England known as the Isles of Scilly this weekend: the World Pilot Gig Championships.

They are a series of boat races of varying distances involving crews of six rowers, including Wallace, and a coxswain.

The longest race is 1.6 nautical miles.

The boats are 32 feet long and made of ⅜-inch thick cedar planks.

They have to be certified a few times during the building process by a naval architect, according to Wallace.

Wallace first became interested in the sport last July when one of the rowers in his boat, Jim Bahoosh, invited him to an introductory row through Come Boating, a community organization in Belfast.

“After two or three intro rows, he texted me about the World Pilot Gig Championships and said I should try out for the team,” wrote Wallace in an email he sent from England.

It didn’t take him long to get hooked on the sport.

He made the team and is one of two newcomers in the boat.

There are eight classes and he and his mates were scheduled to race on Saturday and Sunday in the men’s open class.

He said they practiced three times a week in Penobscot Bay or the Passagassawakeag River in Belfast.

“I have raced in Belfast and we rowed in the Snow Row in March in Hull, Mass.,” said Wallace.

He described the sport as “simply exhilarating.

“The enjoyment I get out of it is immense,” he said. “It is good for staying active and fit.

“And I so very much enjoy being part of a team focused on a specific goal,” he added.

There were 441 crews at the event with the women’s open class and men’s open class having the most crews with 132 and 129, respectively. The other classes are the women’s vets (43) and men’s vets (39), the women’s supervets (49) and men’s supervets (40) and the women’s masters (4) and men’s masters (5).

They hold a series of heat races leading up to the finals.

He said all of the rowers in his club are from Maine. They have sent three crews to the competition: a women’s supervets team, his men’s open class crew and a women’s open squad.

“The supervets raced Friday and performed so very admirably,” he wrote.

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He said the rowers are “mostly from Belfast but there are a couple of us from Bangor and Brooks, China, Unity and Dixmont are also represented.”

His team will include fellow rowers Bahoosh, Ethan Shaw, John Dillenbeck, Benjamin Marriner Pratt, and Clark Staples along with coxswain Leigh Dorsey.

“My future plans for the sport are to continue training and come back here next year,” wrote Wallace.