Tough journey to national champs for local waka ama crews

A109 Light Utility Helicopter flight with mayor Gisborne City from the air in November 2023.

Tairāwhiti crews will take part in the Waka Ama New Zealand Long Distance Nationals at Whitianga on the back of a disrupted training schedule.

Mareikura Waka Ama Club crews, especially, have been hampered in their training.

Anzac Park has been a restricted area since Cyclone Gabrielle struck in mid-February.

Mareikura saved their W6 waka, which were shifted on to the football field at Anzac Park, but eight club single-seat waka were among nearly 30 W1 craft either wrecked or washed out to sea by the flooding Waimata River.

Club chairman Billy Maxwell said that despite the losses in single-seat waka, they were still the main mode of paddling for crews training for the long distance nationals.

The restrictions attached to the use of Anzac Park following the cyclone, and the difficulty of getting W6 waka down to the river, meant single-seat waka provided the most practical training solution.

The club had brothers Jack and Rory Gifford, in the J16 division, and Kat Berntsen and Liz Tane, in the golden master women’s division, paddling in the single-seat races tomorrow.

On Saturday, Berntsen and Tane would paddle in the Mareikura Manawa W6 golden master women’s team, along with Carolyn Hodgkinson, Beverley Murray, Marlene Nikora and Christina Stockman.

Horouta Waka Hoe Club members, based at the marina at the confluence of the Waimata and Taruheru rivers, have also been affected, though not to the same extent as those at Anzac Park.

Once the river pollution was sufficiently diluted and the ramps were cleared, Horouta crews were able to get out, often into the comparatively clean water of the bay.

They also had a relatively straightforward task in getting the W6 waka to the ramp from their temporary storage area close to Ormond Road.

They have 32 single-seat, three W2 and 12 W6 entries from J16 to master 70 (70-plus) divisions.

The nationals bring together 1045 paddlers representing 56 clubs. Paddlers will compete over distances of eight kilometres, 16km or 24km, depending on their divisions.