As Robert Burns once wrote: "The best laid schemes o' mice an' men gang aft a-gley." After the weekend, the officials of the Wanganui Rowing Association would most certainly agree.
The Tonks Small Boat Race was originally laid down for Sunday, October 13, but conditions on the river caused a postponement until the following Sunday. Unfortunately, during last week rainfall in the headwaters of the river caused havoc with those plans, as the boatsheds were flooded and the water was liberally loaded with floating timber, so the second postponement was a sensible and logical decision.
In fact, the river came back to normal reasonably quickly and when I was down at the river on Sunday morning the worst was over. The timber debris had mostly cleared, levels had dropped and the dirty brown river was moving at a rowable pace.
The Aramoho club held an open day and had a good gathering. Rowers generally spent a good day getting their sheds back in order and boats that had been removed for safety were brought back home. The clubs seem to have done a good job cleaning up after the flood waters and the river appears to have had a good flush out, and the timber has gone. As yet, no decision has been made as to whether a third attempt will be made to run the race at some future date.
At present, the next event on the local programme is the 10km race for eight-oared boats laid down for Sunday morning on November 10. This is a Head-style race, as originally set up in England by Steve Fairburn, one of whose mantras was "mileage makes champions". Originally, crews were sent off at timed intervals (say 30 secs), based on age and experience. The course ran from Upokongaro to the Town Bridge, being a distance of 12km, and the crew with the fastest time over the course were the winners. Since then, the rules governing the race have been altered, with crews being given a handicap based on prognostic times. The idea behind this was to raise the possibility that ideally all the crews should be well bunched together over the final part of the course. The distance was also shortened, with the finish being either at the finish on the Aramoho 2000m course or further down river off the National Library Building. As a result, the event was referred to as the 10km race. The crew that crossed the finish line first were declared the winners.