Their weekend gig: racing gigs

Team Saquish ready for rowing challenge

Foreground, coxswain and team coach Michael Jenness Jr., then front to back, Hilary Moll, team captain; Mary Patrice Ruocco, Karin Kaczorowski, Beth Howard, Anthony Ruocco (who was filling in for the ailing Jessica Rowcraft), and Michelle Hughes, practicing in Plymouth Harbor. (PAUL E. KANDARIAN FOR THE BOSTON GLOBE)

PLYMOUTH - A cold, gray Plymouth Harbor awaited the rowers. With no wind at low tide, the water was dead calm. Michael Jenness Jr. wished it were anything but.

"It's good to have rough seas," said Jenness, a Pembroke police officer with a passion for building pilot gigs, and the coach of the Team Saquish women's squad that races them. "Better to practice in that here, because it's gonna be rough as hell there."

"There" is where history awaits: a windswept group of islands off the rugged southwest coast of England. Plymouth-based Team Saquish is the first women's team from the United States to compete in the World Pilot Gig Championships in the Isles of Scilly.

The five-day race of pilot gigs - large, six-person rowboats - is scheduled to start today. It will feature 108 teams from as far away as Australia, virtually all of them boasting a women's component, and virtually all far more seasoned than the Team Saquish six-woman squad, which sprang to life in January from a larger group of women who were rowing together.

Jenness, 54, has competed with the men's Team Saquish squad three times in England that has never come close to winning. He and the women's team know they, too, are unlikely to bring home a victory, but what matters most is being there in the first place.

"It's a very prestigious race," said Hilary Moll, 44, team captain, a Brockton resident and teacher at Stoughton High School.

In addition to Moll, the team members, all in their 30s and 40s, include Karen Kaczorowski, a veterinarian from Marshfield; Beth Howard of Hull, an educator at the Hull Lifesaving Museum; Michelle Hughes, a Hanson police officer; Mary Patrice Ruocco of Rochester, medical administrator; and the aptly named Jessica Rowcraft of Charlestown, a state worker.

The Isles of Scilly are a group of islands 28 miles southwest of Land's End in Cornwall. Bathed by the gulf stream, the islands seem out of place, existing in a sub-tropical clime where the temperature never gets below 32 or above 90, Jenness said.

Jenness built the boat the women were using for practice, a boat named Michael Jenness Sr. after his late father, with whom he learned the craft of boatbuilding. Team Saquish will use a borrowed boat in England, and a loaned coxswain who knows the wind-whipped and rock-strewn waters, which are among the world's most dangerous.

Pilot gigs are 32-foot rowing crafts that trace their origin to the early 1800s, when they were used to take pilots out to incoming vessels off the coast. The fleetest among them got paid, and the concept of racing the six-oared vessels was born.

The championships in Cornwall are a grueling three-day affair. There is a 2 1/2-mile initial race the Friday of the event, followed by a series of 1-mile races, with the final taking place on Sunday. It all happens in open water, 3 miles offshore in virtually all weather conditions.

Here at home, Team Saquish's women's team does well in local races; it won the Hull Snow Row this year. But Moll said the women know the competition they'll face in England and are shooting for a top 50 finish.

The first day's race is an all-encompassing event, with all boats lined up on the beach a mile wide. The result of the initial race determines which team gets put into various categories for subsequent races, the 1-mile sprints.

The sprints are the killers, Moll said, requiring all-out bursts of energy. Gearing up for that, the team pushed hard recently as their pilot gig knifed effortlessly through Plymouth Harbor, where they usually practice. The team docks its boats at Brewer Plymouth Marine, where Hilary Moll's brother, Timothy, is manager. The Molls grew up in Scituate, and have spent their lives on the water.

During practice in the harbor, Jenness barked out commands as he acted as coxswain. The women guided the 980-pound boat, worth an estimated $30,000, with long, heavy oars ($500 each).

The team pays its own way to get to the event, which will cost them roughly $2,500 each, Jenness said. They are seeking donations, and have applied for nonprofit, tax-deductible status; call Hilary Moll at 508-846-6254 or write teamsaquish@comcast.net to find out how to contribute.

"This is big, a first for a US women's team, and to be honest, there aren't a lot of full women's teams in the United States at all," Jenness said, adding that women usually are part of mixed-gender teams here. "We hope this team starts the fire and gets a lot more women's teams going." In addition, Moll said, they'll be meeting with the Cornish Rowing Association for the Blind while in Cornwall in hopes of implementing a rowing program for the blind in the United States.

For more information on the team, visit saquishrowingeducationsocietyinc.org.

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