Winner, Bruce Tate, with Gus Scott, event manager.
Winner, Bruce Tate, with Gus Scott, event manager.
The annual start to the summer rowing season got under way on Saturday, November 23, with the Whanganui Bridge to Bridge 10km race from the new Upokongaro Cycleway bridge to the Whanganui City Bridge.
Race start time was moved to 8am to cater for the Whanganui Motorboat Club Regatta between the Dublin and Railway Bridges, which enabled our rowers to race and then make their way back upriver to their clubs before motorboat racing started.
The Whanganui Bridge to Bridge (B2B) is focused on big-boat racing, with a total of 16 crews entered and only three single scullers, and it is a great endurance test and session for most of the young rowers who took part.
Second placegetters Achilles, Kynan, Misha, Jordan and Charlie with event manager Gus Scott.
The single scullers set off approximately 10 minutes before the other boats, with the slowest prognostic boats (expected slowest time) leaving first, with the expected fastest crews leaving last.
The fastest crew was the Aramoho Rowing Club (AWRC) senior men’s coxless quadruple scull crew of Nicky Maxim, Herbie Austin-Baker, Jake Newton and Eli Kuehne, in a slick time of 34 minutes, 16 seconds and 89.45% prognostic, which put them in fourth prognostic place overall.
Line honours and top prognostic of 90.57%, in 43 minutes and 47 seconds went to Master rower Bruce Tate, now of AWRC, with the AWRC men’s intermediate coxed quad scull crew of Charlie Brougham, Achilles Paikea, Kynan Brewer, Jordan Hallett and Misha Young (cox) second with 90.41% and 36 minutes and 29 seconds.
Third placegetters Matthias, George, Honor, Charlie and Ben with event manager Gus Scott.
Taking out third place was the Whanganui Collegiate School (WCS) boys under-18 coxed quad scull crew of George Wells, Ben Poulton, Charlie Price, Matthias Pa’a and Honor Walker (cox) with 89.68% and 36 minutes and 25 seconds.
The first women’s crew home and fifth on prognostic with 88.50% was the AWRC women’s club coxless quad crew of Robyn Van Dijk, Ruby Armishaw, Ruby Bullock and Te Atakura Potaka-Osborne-Milner-Skudder.
Most of these clubs and crews and other junior rowers from the region have a jam-packed end-of-year coming up, with three further regattas in a row prior to the Christmas Break.
Next up is the Blake Construction Jury Cup on Saturday, December 7, here on our 2km Aramoho course and proudly sponsored by Blake Eves of Blake Construction, who undertook the excellent upgrade of our Finish Tower and have generously supported this regatta and Whanganui Rowing.
The final regatta most of our clubs and rowers will head to, prior to having some well-deserved Christmas pudding, is the huge Karapiro Christmas Regatta (KR1) at Lake Karapiro from December 13-15, which clubs and coaches will rely on to really gauge the end-of-year performance of rowers and crews going into the new year.
The ultimate focus is on the NZ Rowing Championships from February 18 at Lake Ruataniwha, Twizel and Maadi Cup from March 23, at Lake Karapiro, Cambridge.
