Rock Creek Rowing purchased two boats during the off season representing the team's first steps to acquire a fleet that it owns outright.  

RCR historically has rented boats from other teams housed at Thompson Boat Center. Because of TBC's physical constraints, acquiring large boats simply wasn't in the cards - there was no place to put them.

This all changed in 2016 as a result of improvements to TBC's facilities - most notably, the addition of new racks in the boathouse's outside storage areas. TBC granted RCR's long-standing request for large boat racks allowing the team to acquire two eights.

The team now owns two Vespoli Eights: a women's eight and a men's heavyweight eight. This brings the team's fleet to a total of four eights, a quad and two doubles that are owned either wholly or in part by RCR.