Blinkhorne and Carroll Winter Series trophy winners

Blinkhorne and Carroll Winter Series trophy winners.

Another successful Blinkhorne and Carroll Winter Series of five May-September 6km out and back races was completed on Sunday, September 8, in good spring weather and excellent river conditions.

Whanganui Provincial coach Axel Dickinson used the event to bring a few Whanganui Provincial rowers together, including Aramoho-Whanganui Rowing Club (AWRC) member Messina Su’a, a member of the New Zealand Under 21 Team this year.

Our Provincial Team of mainly under 20 school rowers will be competing against the five other North Island Provincial Teams at Lake Karapiro on September 28-29 for the Graeme Moran Trophy.

Whanganui Provincial Team, rowers holding blue T-shirts.

We took the opportunity to name the team and present them with T-shirts at the Winter Series prizegiving; Jake Newton, William Herd, Nicky Maxim, Eli Kuehne, Bryn Morgan, Robyn Van Dijk, Bea Douglas, Lauren Davies (all AWRC), Clayton Potts, Madison Neale and Jesse Pulford (Clifton Rowing Club) and Ben Poulton, Tyler Weyburne, Olive Strahan, Franca and Ottalie Morah, Hunter Rowlands and Eva Can der Zowe (WCS), Axel Dickinson (coach) and Dan McSweeney (manager.)

There were 22 rowing, waka and kayak boats entered this month, a little down on some previous months, but with the Secondary School Winter Sports Tournament just completed, some of our youth were having a break or in the case of our Junior Coastal rowers, Jake Newton and William Herd, were jetting off to Italy.

Winners this month were the AWRC and Whanganui Collegiate School (WCS) combination Boys Under 17 Coxed Quad Scull of Nicky Maxim, Achilles Paikea, Joshua Cordene, Bryn Morgan and coxswain Hunter Rowland.

Their time was 22 minutes and 45 seconds, with a prognostic of 86.59%. Second place pleasantly went to the Whanganui Multisport under 16 Girls K2 combination of Zoe Anderson and Hayley Stewart with third place to the capable Union Boat Club (UBC) & Horowhenua RC (HRC) Mixed Master D Quad scull crew of Nicola Goss, Bruce Tate, Kevin Horan and Andrew Bealing.

Points are allocated to every competitor in each race throughout the five races by event manager Gus Scott, with a Rowing and Waka Ama Points Trophy awarded to the highest points in each discipline.

The very consistent Bruce Tate (UBC) won the Rowing Points Trophy with 105 points from Bryn Morgan, 97 points and Nicky Maxim, 97 points, both from AWRC.

Four people were joint winners of the Waka Ama Trophy on 68 points; Amiria Paranihi, Bull Thomson, Heremia Taputoro and Tony Te Wekepiri, so very hotly contested.

-

The next race on our calendar on Sunday, October 13, is the Tonks Small Boat Race, named after six-time Olympic gold medallist coach and former UBC and Olympic silver medallist Richard Tonks. The race is over 6 kilometres and starts and finishes around the Aramoho Railway Bridge area, with a turn adjacent to the Treadwell Gordon Building. All man/woman powered boats are welcome with entries due 12pm the day prior to e: whanganuirowing@gmail.com on the normal Excel sheet.