Oh buoy, what a fun idea!
And I think this could be a whole lot of fun to play with a friend, but even alone this is fun.
What I will say is I think the game could benfit from streamlined controls, since the dinghy is hard enough to control as is (especially in later levels). My suggestion would by holding down the button to prepare a row and letting it go to execute it, with how long you hold down the button influencing how much strength is put into the row.
But the current controls work fine enough to play.
Really, all around a solid entry.