"We're one of the two novice teams that are going this year, so we don't expect any gold medals," Paul Hassall said as a member of the middle crew. "But we're going to try."
Each of the rowing teams is allowed a maximum of 12 training sessions on the water. Naturally, because of other commitments among team members, the groups train at varying times, so More4Apps have not been able to compare their skills directly with the other teams yet. That will come on Regatta Day.
"But some of the other crews that I've seen on other occasions - the experienced ones - they're really good," Tere said.
"They're already doing distance. We're still on training wheels, whereas other teams are like marathon runners."
Tere said she thinks the More4Apps team is doing relatively well in regards to the amount of training sessions it's fitting in.
"Typically, a rowing team trains six days a week, twice a day, so when you put that in perspective we would have effectively only trained one week," she said.
"So, I think we're doing awesome."
Tere and Paul had some humorous stories to share about the team's experiences in training too, though - including, but not limited to, flipping and 'catching a crab', the latter referring to when an oar gets caught in the water, requiring the rower to lie back and let it roll over them, before trying to grab on to it and get back into the rhythm.
"Hopefully it won't happen on race day, though," Tere said.
The More4Apps team has training sessions for 90 minutes during the week, and longer ones of up to three hours on the weekend.
"Last Saturday, we started at about 8.30 in the morning at Ferrybank, rowed down to the Pukete foot bridge, turned around, came back to St Paul's, hopped out, had snacks with family and friends, got back in and then rowed home," Tere said.
"Everyone had done about 16km by the end of the day, so we were pretty exhausted," Paul added.
As well as being a great competitive activity, rowing helps the staff develop a great sense of camaraderie.
"Everyone has something else to talk about in the office other than the suite of Excel to EBS feature rich wizards," Tere said.
She's referring to the company's specialist software, which enables mass data to be quickly and accurately uploaded to and downloaded from the Oracle E-Business Suite database system via using Excel workbooksspreadsheets.
"It's good team building because rowing isn't a single person sport," Paul said.
"It's a team sport - so at the same time everyone has to be in sync with one another. Everyone's got to be a well-oiled machine, as is the case at work."
The regatta HQ is Hamilton Rowing Club, 154 Grantham Street, Hamilton, on Saturday September 2. The first of seven races is at 9.05am.
- Gary Farrow is Content Creator at More4Apps, Waikato Innovation Park, Hamilton.
