KEY POINTS:
Eric Craies, MBE, rowing coach. Died aged 94.
Forget School Certificate or University Entrance marks, only one score mattered to rowers at Westlake Boys High School from the late 1960s to the 1980s - cracking 600 on Eric Craies' rowing ergometer.
He'd built this green machine in
his engineering workshop, an assembly of pulleys, flywheels and weights that tested the strength and endurance of his athletes over six minutes. Many more hit their exam targets than the magical 600.
But Craies' legacy goes far beyond those rowing boys at the North Shore school. It's safe to say there's not a North Island rower, or coach, from the 1950s onwards who hasn't been influenced in some way by Craies.
He started rowing with the West End club in 1932 and by the 1940s was masterminding success there as a coach, winning the first of seven champion eights titles in 1949.
He coached the New Zealand eight - all West End rowers - which missed gold by 30cm at the Auckland Empire Games in 1950. He took the Commonwealth Games crew to Perth in 1962 and the men's eight to the Tokyo Olympics in 1964.
The culture he developed at the club helped to give rise to the West End men who catapulted New Zealand on to the international scene from the late 1960s.
Craies had already built another rowing empire at Mt Albert Grammar School during the 1950s when the school was virtually unbeatable in the boys' senior eight, winning the Maadi Cup seven times under him as coach.
He was a huge believer in the squad system - a philosophy of building depth in every position in the boat and encouraging internal competition.
Craies' A, B, C, D and E exercises were legendary. Every rower he coached learned and never forgot them, in the process discovering the parts that made up the rowing stroke.
He even built a barge that seated his novice rowers side by side with a deck in between so as to better teach the disciplines.
Craies coached with great patience but reserved a furious temper for skylarkers - a coxswain who didn't follow instructions would get a withering blast from shore via walkie-talkie, a stroke who led his crew away for a training row while Craies was still organising his speedboat was reduced to tears after a lecture about leadership.
But far more remembered was his love of a rowing yarn, passion for coaching, deep knowledge and the values he passed on to generations of rowers. Craies is survived by his wife, Hilary, and sons Mark and Grant.
* Deputy sports editor Andy Hay was coached by Eric Craies, whose A, B, C, D and E exercises helped the NZ eight Hay coxed to world titles in 1982 and 1983.
