Rowing: Rowers ready for a storm in a pod

New Zealand is preparing for an Olympic-sized storm if they need to unveil their rowing "pods" at Athens next week.

All five New Zealand crews, including gold medal favourites Caroline and Georgina Evers-Swindell, have been trialling the clip-on pods for three weeks at their training camp in Hazewinkel, Belgium.

Prevailing August winds at the Schinias course that hosts rowing and canoeing at the Games are strong, creating choppy, unpredictable water.

In such conditions, the New Zealanders will use the attachments on their boats, to deflect water from the cockpit.

New Zealand manager James Sheehan said most leading nations had developed their own pods, none of which had yet been cleared as legal by world governing body Fisa.

Therefore, the days leading up to the start of the Games regatta on August 14 could turn into a hotbed of protests and one-upmanship.

"Everyone will wait to see the conditions before they start bringing their toys out," Sheehan, said in Hazewinkel.

"At that stage it will be a case of them either being cleared - if they're not seen as a sail to enhance performance - or not.

"If somebody has outsmarted somebody, that's when the in-house fighting will start. If our clip-ons are better than their clip-ons, they'll try to get ours ruled out."

Sheehan and the New Zealand rowers hoped the water would be smooth enough to allow standard boats to compete without fear of water filling the cockpit. However, weather forecasts indicated that would not be the case.

The company that builds the New Zealand boats, Cambridge-based Kiwi International Rowing Skiffs, has spent several months designing the carbon fibre pods, using technology from the Team New Zealand America's Cup programme.

They are 30cm high at the base of the cockpit, tapering aerodynamically forward to a point.

New Zealand were the only team to use an attachment at the Hollandbeker regatta near Amsterdam three weeks ago.

The gusty tailwinds there were close to what can be expected at Athens and the New Zealand rowers were impressed by the pods' impact.

Men's fours crewman Mahe Drysdale said their boat was kept dry in turbulent water.

"We won't be alone at Athens, though," Drysdale said. "Other countries are preparing for the same, so we're expecting some quite radical designs."

Pairs rower Nathan Twaddle noticed that the pod created a stir with other crews and the public.

"I noticed people trying to figure out what the heck it was," he said.

He had heard Australia had been experimenting with foot-powered bilge pumps to bail water out of the cockpit, but New Zealand had not gone that far.

"I think we've got sponges," he said.

The New Zealand crews have experienced few problems in their month at Hazewinkel. The only injury of note was a boil on the backside of men's fours oarsman Carl Meyer, which forced his three crewmates to train in pairs and singles for three days last week.

New Zealand's No 1 boats left yesterday by road for Athens, driven by former national rower Sam Earl and high-performance manager Barrie Mabbott. They will arrive two days ahead of the rowers, who shift to Athens on Monday.

Meanwhile, the team were rocked by the sudden death overnight of the father of coach Marion Horwell, who arranged to return to New Zealand immediately.

It was not clear whether Horwell, the mentor for women's pair Nicky Coles and Juliette Haigh, would rejoin the team before the Olympic regatta.

* In 1988, revolutionary new pods on New Zealand's canoes for the Seoul Olympics were outlawed by the International Canoeing Federation on the grounds that the pods had never been seen in ICF competition.

* The woman viewed as the biggest stumbling block for the Evers-Swindell twins' bid for Olympic gold has bailed out of the event.

German legend Kathrin Boron, winner of seven world championship titles and three Olympic gold medals, has pulled out of the double scull and moved into her country's quad crew.

Boron was to have teamed up with Britta Oppelt. The pair were silver medallists at last year's world championships, won by the Hamilton twins, and were tipped as their toughest rivals for gold.

The 35-year-old Boron has been replaced by Peggy Waleska in a bid to improve her chances of a fourth successive gold.

The German team spokesman Michael Mueller said the decision had been made because "the New Zealand double is hard to beat. That's why we decided to strengthen the quad instead."

- NZPA