Rain and swollen river play havoc with rowing

Rod Trott is organising a reunion of former members of the 1963-64 Collegiate School Eights. PHOTO/FILE

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.

On the same weekend that the 10km Long Distance Race for Eights is to be held, there is an interesting reunion being organised for former members of the 1963-64 Collegiate School Eights. This event is being organised by Rod Trott, a member of both the crews and now a member of the Union BC. Both these crews were successful in winning the Maadi Cup race and in both cases there were some odd goings-on, mainly caused since at the time the Auckland headmasters had decreed that no boy should row more than one race in a day, so heats were not on.

In 1963, the race was held on the Whanganui River as part of the annual Wanganui Secondary Schools Regatta, which had been established the previous year. The race was timed to start at the top of the tide, as there were nine crews racing and space at the start was limited. The starter had great trouble getting the race off to a good start and the process, which involved one false start in which a collision occurred within the starting zone - of which there is a photo in Arthur Bates' book The Whanganui River Today - lasted for 75 minutes.

The following year in 1964, the race was held at the Waikato-Bay of Plenty Schools Regatta, and this time there were 14 crews in the race as heats were still considered a no-no. Fortunately, on Karapiro there is plenty of room and there was no repeat of the previous year's fiasco. The Governor-General, Sir Bernard Fergusson, was on hand to present the Maadi Cup to the winners, which seemed appropriate as he had had relations at the Collegiate School in the 1890s. Not surprisingly, at the annual meeting of the NZ Secondary Schools Rowing Association held after the race, it was moved and passed that in future heats would be held if the number of entries exceeded six.