Novice rowers with the Wanaka Rowing Club (WRC) excelled at last weekend’s (October 31 to November 1) Aoraki Rowing Regatta at Ruataniwha.

The regatta, the first of the new competitive rowing season, was an opportunity for novice rowers to gain race experience and nine WRC novices teamed up with 10 experienced club rowers to win several heats and earn podium finishes in finals.

WRC club captain AJ Humphreys said the club squad of 19 plus four coaches performed “exceptionally well”, especially the novices who had never raced before. 

“The Aoraki regatta is the first introduction for these novice rowers to rowing in lanes, racing and the whole experience that is ‘a rowing regatta’,” AJ said. 

All races were over the shorter 1km distance (usually 2km) and novice rowers teamed up with the older, more experienced junior rowers to learn the ropes, as well as rowing in their own novice race events.

The novice rowers, all aged between 13 to 17-years-old, were Ella Kaler, Kelly Quirke, Amelia Craig, Jess Gould, Anton Jones, Max Good, Jem Curtis, Matai Wells and Torben Craig, as well as a first time coxswain, Thomas Mitchell.

Winners during the weekend included Tao Hawkey-Hight who had a great race in his under 17 single sculls race to qualify for the A final in which he placed third.

Tao went on the team up with novice Jem Curtis in the double sculls; they came second in their heat, then put in a huge effort to win the finals.

Tao also joined novices Anton Jones, Matai Wells, Torben Craig, with Neve Faed as cox, in a mixed novice quad race. It was a real eye opener for Matai and Torben who started rowing only six weeks ago, AJ said. 

Experienced scullers Neve Faed and Lyla Chamberlain teamed up with Amelia Craig and Jess Gould in a couple of double scull races and did remarkably well, both making the B final. While Amelia and Jess gained a huge amount of experience, Neve and Lyla also enjoyed the satisfaction of passing on their competitive skills, AJ said. 

The club’s medal winning rowers also proved their class dominating the podium in the Girls Under 16 and Under 17 double sculls, he said. 

Pipi Horan and Ruby Boyd won both their heat and the final in the girls under 16 double in “typically emphatic” fashion, AJ said.

Lyla Chamberlain and Emily Findlay achieved the same feat in the girls under 17 double event. Their final featured two other Wanaka crews; Neve Faed and Bella Sarginson finished a very close third while the Samara Goodall and Hayley Ambrose combination came sixth.

This regatta was also the first time the junior girls competed in the club’s new ‘eight’, kindly donated by the Sargood Bequest, and the eight rowed into a very credible fifth place in the open men and women’s heat.  

“They showed a huge amount of potential beside crews of their own age and they took a lot of encouragement from the experience,” AJ said.

The regatta had its lighter moments too, he said, as the club’s coaches, Rachel O’Connell, Matt Rickard, Dave Ayres and AJ Humphreys competed in the Masters quad sculls event, to the glee of the young squad.

AJ said the masters performed creditably, winning the quad A final. Rachel also won the women’s single scull heat but was “robbed” of a finals on the Sunday when the regatta was abandoned due to high winds.

He said the weekend’s weather conditions were mixed with the first day (Saturday) being wet in the morning but producing great lake conditions. Sunday’s competition was interrupted when the winds got up, however, delaying some racing and by early afternoon the regatta was called off with five of the club’s A finals unraced.

“Overall the regatta was a great success for Wanaka and we qualified for 15 A finals (including two masters A finals) and two B finals which is a great weekend by anyone’s standards,” AJ said.

The club’s next regatta is the Otago Championships on December 12 -13 at Ruataniwha. 

PHOTO: Supplied