“They went into North Islands [regatta] more tired than they have ever been in my time at the club,” Dickinson said.
“They performed really, really well. Some of the performances were just unreal, to be honest.”
Dickinson said the girls’ under-16, under-17 and under-18 coxed quad crews stood out to him.
The girls’ under-17 crew was the exact same crew who won the under-18 event.
Two of the crew members, Bailey Barnett and coxswain Morgan Wood, were part of all three gold medal quads.
Dickinson said the “dogfight” the gold-winning boys’ under-17 coxed quad had with Whanganui Collegiate was a surprise.
Dickinson praised the efforts of under-17 quad crew member Ross Llaneta, who had 28 minutes after finishing to get to the start of the under-16 single sculls, in which he won bronze.
“I feel really good about where we are. Over the past four years, no school has won more medals at North Island Secondary School [Championships] than Whanganui High School,” Dickinson said.
“The schools at the top are usually deep-pocket private schools so to be able to say that with the limited resources we have is pretty bloody cool.”
Whanganui Collegiate made 14 A finals, collecting five silver medals and two bronze.
Overall, Collegiate placed 10th-equal with St Paul’s Collegiate School.
Collegiate School’s master in charge and manager of rowing Gus Scott was pleased with his crew’s performance and wanted to back it up at the 2026 Maadi Cup at the end of March.
Scott said the school was unlucky to miss out on a couple of gold medals, particularly in the boys’ under-16 coxed quad, who came second to King’s College by 0.03s.
Whanganui Girls’ College’s Lusia Smith won the girls’ under-16 single sculls.
It is the first time Girls’ College has won a medal since 2005.
John Carter, of the Girls’ College coaching team, said Smith was an amazing athlete who was defying her age by winning an under-16 event at the age of 14.
“It’s just her strength; she pushes that boat an amazing amount of distance each stroke, it is just phenomenal,” Carter said.
“She went into the heats and got second and she was stressed about it but we spoke about it for two days and formulated a plan [to win].”
Girls’ College made one other A final, with the girls’ under-18 novice double sculls.
It is the first time since 2020 Girls’ College has sent crews to the North Island Championships.
Carter said the school’s performance closed out a number of “building years” after Covid-19.
“We have tried to get them into a team environment where they get to drive what they are doing and the results are stemming from that,” he said.
Cullinane College’s boys’ under-15 double sculls crew of Logan McBride and Luca Kuehne made the school’s only A final.
Fin Ocheduszko Brown is a multimedia journalist based in Whanganui.
