A top Northland waka ama paddler will be remembered in this weekend's Bo Herbert Memorial waka ama event at Tutukaka. Bo's eldest son, Conan, has organised the race in memory of his father, who died in 2005. Bo Herbert paddled out of the Pawarenga club and competed around New Zealand andthe Pacific in the 1980s. "He was one of the top guys in New Zealand, he travelled all over the place," Conan Herbert said of his father, a dairy farmer from the Hokianga settlement. So far 60 crews from as far afield as Christchurch and Rarotonga had registered to take part in events on Saturday and Sunday, and more were expected on the day, Conan Herbert said. "Bo was pretty well known, so there's lots of people who remember him and are interested, even if they can't make it." The races will be in one-person and two-person canoes, and a mixture of single and relay events over 30km and 40km. Conan Herbert now lives in Raglan in Waikato but regularly visits Northland and his home-town of Pawarenga, a waka ama stronghold where he grew up paddling with the Nga Hoe Hora club. "Paddling's just what we've always done. Just what we went out and did in the weekends," he said.
