The Orcas Island Rowing club is offering beginner rowing classes this summer.

“It won’t make you a teenager again (sorry), but it will make you feel younger,” said club organizer Martin Taylor.  “Rowing is a fantastic outdoor sport that burns a lot of calories while being relatively low impact.”

The first class will be offered Tuesday through Friday, July 5 to 8, over four two-hour sessions from 7 to 9 a.m.

“The kind of rowing being taught uses those super long, super thin rowing shells,” said Taylor. “If you have seen the recent movie about Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, ‘The Social Network,’ you have seen that kind of rowing boat. Except in that movie they were sweep rowing where each rower only has one oar.”

He said the OIR classes will instead teach sculling, in which each rower has two oars. This allows one rower to operate a single scull; sweep rowing is only possible with a crew of two or more.

Classes will be held at the club’s boathouse on Cascade Lake. The cost is $150.

Those who successfully complete the class will be offered further opportunities to row with the club through the summer.

“Learning this summer is good timing as there are a lot of fun rowing regattas (races) in the Western Washington in the fall,” said Taylor “The fall races are longer, slower paced races called “Head Races.”

More classes will be taught if there is enough demand.

To sign up for a class, contact Taylor at 376-6935 or visit www.orcasislandrowing.org.