Former UTBP lifeguards took lifeboat entire length of state in six days
UPPER TOWNSHIP — A few weeks ago, two former Upper Township Beach Patrol lifeguards borrowed a Wildwood Beach Patrol lifeboat emblazoned with the American flag and rowed it from Cape May Point to the Statue of Liberty.
Appropriate for the nation’s 250th anniversary.
It provided some good-natured bragging rights to boot, while raising thousands of dollars for a pair of causes.
Ryan Fisher and Kyle Rumaker, both 28 years old and now a state trooper and coastal engineer, respectively, rowed 155.1 miles in the ocean over the course of six days.
They used 62,000 strokes for the trip, often fighting the currents and winds, a detour that took them three miles offshore and a thunderstorm that stole their boat.
But they made it and had some great experiences along the way while showing the Ocean City High School graduates (2016 and 2017) just what they could accomplish.
“My father-in-law (Bill Handley) is chief of the Upper Township Beach Patrol,” Fisher said. “He did this trip back in 2007 with Rod Tice and went from Strathmere to the Statute of Liberty. We kind of wanted to one-up him a little bit.”
“We always wanted to do this trip, so we told him we’re going to do the entire state. It was very impressive they did it back then,” Fisher said. “We said, ‘Why didn’t you guys do the whole state if you were rowing that far already?’”
“I did it myself in 2007, so I know what goes into it,” Handley said. “I was clearly impressed. They had to fight through adverse conditions on four of the six days.”
Rumaker and Fisher set out the Monday before Labor Day. Their mileage varied per day, once because of a storm when they actually lost their boat.
Rumaker and Fisher rowed just over 28 miles the first day, ending in Strathmere. The second day they rowed 23 miles to Brigantine. The third day? “That was a mess because a big thunderstorm rolled through,” Fisher said.
They had locked down their boat on Brigantine beach with a bicycle lock with the help of the Brigantine Beach Patrol.
“They were awesome. Then we got a call from the Brigantine Beach Patrol in the morning, saying they recovered the boat. The storm had blown it off the lock and rolled it down the beach and into the water. And it’s not our boat, either,” Fisher said. The storm left a 5-inch crack in the boat. (He was taking the boat to get fixed when he was interviewed.)
The storm had another effect: the large swells forced them to row about three miles offshore. They were planning to make it to Harvey Cedars, but the tough going had them finish in Holgate, the south end of Long Beach Island after 15 miles. They feared the change would force a seventh day of the trip.
It didn’t.
“We woke up in the morning and there were really good conditions outside, a south wind and everything, so we were able to take advantage of it,” Fisher said.
They rowed 40 miles that day — 10 hours straight — to get back on track.
Training and support
Before getting back to the story of the trip, it begs the question how they prepared for those long rows in the ocean and the help they received.
“It wasn’t very friendly, honestly,” Fisher said about the conditions, which were favorable only two of the six days with currents and wind working against them.
“Kyle and I raced a bunch in the past and did pretty well in the ocean races (as lifeguards), but when we were training we really didn’t get any time to row in the ocean. A lot of our training was in the river,” he said.
A factor was matching up their different work schedules to find time to row and then to make their trip.
“We did train, probably not as much as we should have, but Kyle works as an engineer in Philadelphia and I work for the New Jersey State Police as a trooper. Our schedules were so conflicting.”
They never rowed more than 10 miles at a clip, which took them about two and a half hours.
Handley said back in 2007, he and Tice had been training with the idea it would help them win races in the lifeguard competitions.
“We realized we weren’t going to win races, but we could row forever,” he said, something Fisher and Rumaker replicated almost 20 years later.
Family supported their trip. They brought an RV along so Rumaker and Fisher had a place to sleep overnight, but they did crash in a hotel room the night of the thunderstorm. They had support for parking the RV from the Harvey Cedars Police Department, a Methodist Church in Belford and a Moose Lodge.
Although they had the support on land, the pair was alone in their rowboat in the ocean, including the day they had to row so far offshore to get away from the breakers.
“That was a pretty crazy day. The waves were huge. We couldn’t even see any houses or anything anymore we were that far offshore. Kyle turned around and said, ‘This is the dumbest thing we’ve ever done.’ We were both a bit frightened that day,” Fisher said.
He noted there is a massive sandbar that ran offshore through Little Egg Harbor Inlet and they could see waves breaking offshore as far as they could see. “We almost turned around that day to wait because we had to go past this inlet and we didn’t know if we were going to make it.
“We just kept rowing offshore until we couldn’t see the wave break any more and eventually it stopped,” he said. They measured it with Google Maps and realized they were three miles from shore.
“But we did see a sailboat. It went right alongside us.”
A most excellent day
The day after the storm and after that 40-mile day, Rumaker and Fisher made it to Manahawkin and from there to Sea Bright in Monmouth County.
“That day was awesome,” Fisher said.
A friend on the Ocean Grove Beach Patrol had spread the word about the duo’s trip.
“We had almost every single beach patrol out there in the water, escorting us, rowing alongside us. There was one guy individually who wasn’t on a beach patrol row alongside us.”
After that 25-mile day, their final stop along the shore was Sea Bright.
Chief Handley and his daughter, Brooke — Fisher’s wife — met them with another boat and rowed with them the entire last day, 27 miles from Sea Bright to the Statue of Liberty.
And then a surreal day
On the sixth day, they arrived at the Statue of Liberty, but they couldn’t dock on Liberty Island in New York Harbor because of National Park Service restrictions. That didn’t dull their arrival.
“We were right at the base. We just took 30, 40 minutes and just appreciated the Statue of Liberty. It was really cool to be in a boat, right at the Manhattan skyline.
“It was kind of surreal, the fact we rowed a rowboat up the whole New Jersey coast. It’s hard to put into words,” he said.
Handley and Brooke finished a little behind them.
“My daughter and I were so exhausted that we had trouble celebrating the way we should have, but the rest of our families were there and the support crew. Once we got out of the boat and stretched our muscles a little bit, I was just really ecstatic,” Handley said.
Asked about the oneupmanship starting from Cape May Point instead of Stathmere, the chief did note the rivalry aspect.
“I will be honest with you, when they decided to do that, the thought crossed my mind that maybe I need to do it again,” Handley said. “Whatever thoughts I had about doing it again were completely erased by rowing 27 miles that day. At 58 years old, I’ll let them have that one and give them nice little kudos.”
What they learned
Rumaker and Fisher learned just how far they could push themselves. Going into the row, neither knew for certain that they could make it.
“We were just taking it one day at a time for the entire thing, even through the hard days and the easy days, and there was a good sense of accomplishment just finishing every single day. Waking up the next day it was almost like the prior day hadn’t happened, even though we were gradually hurting more each day.” Rumaker did the math: they did 62,000 strokes to make the 155.1 miles of rowing from one end of the state to the other.
“A year before this row we were laughing so hard because we did the math. We were like, ‘how far can we move the boat every stroke. All right, it’s going to take us 60,000 strokes to get there.’ The fact is took 62,000 strokes I can’t believe we estimated so closely.”
Thankful for support as
fundraising tops $14,000
Like Chief Handley and Tice before them, who were community conscious and used their row to raise money for causes, Fisher and Rumaker had goals as well. They appreciated the support along the way.
Former lifeguard Chris Denn, who makes oars at Oar House in Ocean View, gave each of them a brand new pair for the row. Denn also directed the duo to the Wildwood Beach Patrol, which had a lifeguard boat donated by Samuel Seafood wrapped in an American flag motif.
“Captain Ed Schneider down there was awesome,” Fisher said. “He texted us every day, some motivation stuff. They let us use this boat because it was the 250th anniversary of America. He loved it and we loved that they let us use the boat, getting to do the whole Jersey shore in an American flag boat all the way up to the Statue of Liberty.”
Fisher noted it was special to him and Rumaker, as former lifeguards, and because as a trooper he’s a first responder now. “This is the first year that New Jersey is recognizing ocean lifeguards as first responders.”
The rowers used the trip to raise money for the ASBPA — the American Shore & Beach Preservation Association — and for a scholarship program for the Upper Township Beach Patrol. (Rumaker, as a coastal engineer, works alongside the ASBPA.)
Topping $14,000, they are still collecting donations, which can be made at their website — www.lighthouse2libertyrow.com
The rowers thanked the following sponsors:
— Oar House Products for donating all equipment needed, oars, seats, clothing;
— Wildwood Beach Patrol for loaning the boat Old Glory;
— Maynard’s Cafe for hosting a beef and beer;
— Gold Sponsors ($1,000) CFS Dental Division and William McLees Architecture;
— Silver Sponsors ($500) Fox Real Estate, Taylor Engineering and Tuckahoe Inn;
— Bronze Sponsors ($250) DiMarco Electric, Atlantic City Moose Lodge, and Affanato Marut Attorneys at Law.
– STORY by DAVID NAHAN/Sentinel staff
– PHOTOS courtesy of Ryan Fisher