It was the smallest turnout for the longest distance race of the 2018 Blinkhorne & Carroll Forestry Winter Series, but with $300 in prize money on the line the competition was keen on Whanganui River this morning.

There were 16 craft of various descriptions who competed in the September edition of the series, which saw changes at the top of the leaderboard as Aramoho-Whanganui RC's dominant pairing of Richard Brock and Trevor Rush again opted to separate, with Rush making a family boat with Steph Rush, while Brock competed as a single.

This helped the August race runnersup Luke Watts and Jonty Thompson claim the top of the podium, as they completed the 9km course in 34m 50.8s, which was just over 86 per cent of the world record on prognostic time for their AWRC composite crew.

Second place when to Union Boat Club's Philippa Baker-Hogan and Martin Bridger, who finished in 38m 43.4s for a 84.85 per cent prognostic time.

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There was a very close finish for third, as Horowhenua guest Bruce Tate (83.63 per cent) was just ahead of Brock (83.18), while Star Boat Club's Kyle Malone (83.06) rounded out the Top 5.

The race concluded the Winter Series, while next on the agenda for several of the competitors will be the NZ Masters Rowing Champs at Lake Karapiro this coming weekend.

The AWRC composite crew get into their stroke.
The AWRC composite crew get into their stroke.