A dream to have Hawke’s Bay Olympic Games hero Emma Twigg rowing a Hawke’s Bay-made boat at an Olympics almost came to grief on a remote road in Switzerland.
The details of the incident aren’t completely clear to brothers and rowers-turned-boatmakers Simon and Hamish Lack.
But they understand that, with the reigning Olympic Games women’s single sculls champion waiting for her two new “Made in Puketapu” boats to arrive in Europe as she prepared for the May 24-26 Lucerne Regatta, one of the hulls was badly damaged when struck by a tyre as the boats were being transported from London.
Simon Lack, who started SL Racing 15 years ago with a dream of becoming one of the World’s most prominent rowing boatmakers, understands the second boat was missed by “millimetres”.
“That was pretty devastating at the time,” he told Hawke’s Bay Today.
“We sent two boats over, one for back-up, so we’d used that back-up before Emma had even received them.”
Where most rowers simply fit into boats within an appropriate weight range, the Twigg boats are personalised down to fine margins.
Simon Lack describes hearing of the mishap, and wondering of the possibility that suddenly instead of having two boats Twigg might suddenly have none.
But Twigg, the Hawke’s Bay Rowing Club member and former Napier Girls’ High School pupil, who had to move to Cambridge for training on Lake Karapiro, told Hawke’s Bay Today there was never any question of her having a boat, just that she wanted a local one.
“I actually saw it as a silver lining,” says the optimistic Twigg of one of the two being damaged. “It makes my choice of boats pretty easy, doesn’t it?”
In two decades plying the waters of Europe she’s “never had to call on a second boat”, and the second boat it will now have to be as she heads for the July 26-August 11 games in France and the rowing at Vaires-sur-Marne Nautical Stadium.
“It doesn’t have much impact at all, actually,” she said.
“I normally travel with just one boat. Our team doesn’t have enough space on the trailer for two boats for everybody, anyway.
“If there’s an issue you give the German manufacturer a call and they’ll have a new boat for you in a couple of days.
“That’s why Simon sent two over, for that reason exactly. It’s not an easy thing to get a boat from New Zealand.”
The damaged boat was sent back to London for assessment and repair, probably never to be raced by 37-year-old Twigg and, says Lack, more likely to be used as a “display” boat as the company spreads its wings in the Northern Hemisphere.
Lack says the damage was being repaired “really well” and, at a pinch, it could be used in Paris if needed.
The other made it to Lucerne where Twigg was third in the open women’s singles final, beaten by Karolien Florijn, of the Netherlands, and Australian rower Tara Rigney.
Twigg, the reigning champion, has noticed her boat is getting plenty of attention, in an environment where few are not made in Europe.
“It has been really interesting,” she said. “In Lucerne it was the first time I was in it. It certainly was interesting to watch people and their reactions, and even my biggest rival on the podium said to me: Are you going to be rowing this boat in Paris?
“A lot of people have been coming over and having a look at it – my coach even found some of the French team having a little bit of…a kind of play… with the boat, trying to see how stiff it is and all those kinds of little things.
“I think it’s kind of cool to be the only one in the boat park with a different boat, because it’s something if they wanted it they could order it.”
There’s no shortage where they come from. Simon Lack says there are seven or eight of Twigg’s boats around the workshop - currently 500sqm on the family farm but with expansion plans.
The company, having already made about 1000 boats, aim to increase to about 350 a year over the next five years, and develop an export market to match what is currently primarily a domestic market.
For Twigg, the first New Zealand rower to compete at five Olympic Games, the action starts with heats on July 27 (New Zealand time) and, all going well, will end with the final on August 3, a pathway similar to that of Hawke’s Bay clubmate Tom Mackintosh, a Tokyo Olympics eights gold medallist now putting New Zealand in the running for both single sculls titles.
She says that while there are the recognised major contenders, the Olympics are the place for “randoms” (meaning comparatively unrated newcomers to the upper echelon) to also make their mark, and the toughest stage, she expects, will be the semifinals on August 1.
The idea of a Hawke’s Bay-made boat at the Olympics has played on the minds of Twigg and the Lacks for some years.
Simon Lack said six months after Tokyo, Twigg rang and asked him: “Have you got a boat I can row?”
“Are you not retiring?” he asked back, and she replied if he had a boat she would be “taking it to Paris”.
“I started the business wanting to supply boats to elite athletes for the Olympics,” said Simon Lack, who plans to be there when it happens.
“Typically it’s not where your bread and butter is, but that’s what you aspire to. There’s just a bit of, like, satisfaction that you can build a product that can do the job.”
Twigg has no retirement plans as such, saying that after the games she will row the World coastal championships off Genoa, Italy, noting – enough to make one wonder what really is next – that coastal rowing will be included at the 2028 Olympic Games in Los Angeles. After that another race or two in North America by the end of the year.
In the meantime, there is something more imminent to think about, in France next weekend.
Twigg says she’ll be looking down at the start line at the sticker in front of her (in the front of the pod).
“Made in Puketapu! How cool.”
Doug Laing is a senior reporter based in Napier with Hawke’s Bay Today, and has 51 years of journalism experience, 40 of them in Hawke’s Bay, in news gathering, including breaking news, sports, local events, issues, and personalities.