Hawke’s Bay on the world stage at coastal rowing as Emma Twigg helps club race to bronze in Italy

Hawke’s Bay Rowing Club will be looking at more opportunities off-shore after the success of a club crew, including legendary Emma Twigg, at the World Coastal Rowing Championships off Genoa, Italy.

Brooke Francis, Hawke's Bay club members Bibi Colgan and Olympic Games sculler Emma Twigg, Lucy Spoors and coxswain Janna de Vries after claiming the women's quadruple sculls bronze medal.

Club member and Paris Olympics women’s single sculls silver medallist Emma Twigg formed a crew with fellow club member Bibi Colgan, double sculls Olympic gold medallists Brooke Francis and Lucy Spoors and London-based Dutch coxswain Jonna De Vries to finish third in the final of the women’s quadruple sculls at the weekend (Monday morning NZT).

Finishing in 18m 23.29s over the 4km course, the crew were more than half-a-minute behind winners the Netherlands, who included Olympics single sculls gold medallist Karolien Florijn. The race was something of a marathon compared with the 7m 19.14s Twigg rowed over 2000m for a silver medal at the Olympics or the 6m 50.54s that Francis and Spoors rowed in their double sculls triumph.

Hawke’s Bay, Tasman Coastal and New Zealand Rowing had each entered teams in the championships, which has a beach sprints arm which will be showcased at the 2028 Los Angeles Olympic Games.

There were just six events at the coastal championships, with well over 200 rowers competing, and teams were able to be entered by countries or clubs, and not specifically comprising their own members.

New Zealand’s one gold medal went to NZR team member and Waikato club member Finlay Hamill in the men’s solo.

Twigg and others will also be at the World Rowing Beach Sprint finals off Genoa on Friday through to Sunday this week.

While uncertain of her competitive future when talking to Hawke’s Bay Today prior to the Olympics, 37-year-old 2020 Olympics singles sculls champion Twigg, rowing at the games in a boat produced by Hawke’s Bay company SL Racing, indicated an interest in the coastal events.

But Puketapu boatbuilder and former rower Simon Lack, who watched Twigg racing at the games in a boat he built as SLRacing starts to make its name in Europe and the UK, where a distributor is now established, isn’t interested in designing and building craft for the seafront varietal, saying the market is small and not something the business would look at expanding into.

Hawke’s Bay Rowing Club rowing director Paddy McInnes, says that with growing numbers of youngsters coming to the sport, coastal options would have to be looked at, with several spots appealing, from Clive to Westshore.

Last week, Rowing New Zealand general manager of development and community Mark Weatherall last week told Radio New Zealand that coastal rowing “creates an opportunity for rowing to go into different communities because getting into a coastal boat is so much easier for the likes of you and me, but if we were to get into a flat-water rowing boat we’d tip out straight away”.

He said Rowing New Zealand was working with Surf Life Saving New Zealand to develop a memorandum of understanding but was also “reaching out at the community level”.