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Wellington Rowing Club Newsletter October 2020  |
Upcoming dates:
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A few words from the President A belated welcome to the club's 136th season to all our members, parents and supporters, especially to those joining the Club for their first season. It was wonderful to see so many crews from across the whole club competing successfully at the Norton Cup last weekend, bringing home the Cup and with it the Top Dog Trophy, soon to be repainted in burgundy and white! These results were particularly encouraging as the 2020-21 season started as the last one ended, with disruptions and events cancelled. The Board were concerned earlier in the year that membership numbers might drop off for this season but this hasn't been the case and we have strong squads across the Club. We are continuing to manage our funds conservatively given current circumstances and our finances are tracking well. You may have noticed that our boathouse (a Category 1 Heritage Building) has taken on a rather patchwork appearance over winter. Following several years of earthquake strengthening and other work on the structure, we've now turned our attention to the long-neglected exterior. Two walls have been stripped, largely re-clad given the condition of old boards, and repainted in a heritage consultant-approved new colour scheme. In some fantastic news, we've just received notification that our application to the Lotteries Grant Board has been successful. Together with generous funding from Wellington City Council, this new grant should allow us to complete the restoration of the exterior before next winter. Full credit for this amazing result goes to former-President Nina Brown, who continues to work tirelessly for the Club. Finally, having recently returned from the UK, including a fascinating visit to the River and Rowing Museum in Henley, I'm keen to catch up with members, new and old (see below for a photo of a vintage ergo). Normally, responsibility for liaison with schools sits with our Vice Captain. Unfortunately this role is currently vacant, so I'd enjoy the opportunity to come along to meetings of school committees to discuss how your membership of Wellington Rowing Club can most benefit all of our organisations. Huw Mitchell- President |
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Vintage ergs at the River and Rowing Museum in Henley. |
Club Captain's report We’re coming into the beginning of our racing season with Wellington Champs, Jury Cup and KR1 all on the calendar over the next four weeks. As always race hard, prepare well and conduct yourselves as the top athletes you are. Although some results will go pear shaped give it every last bean to the line and take a good break over Christmas, you’ve earned it. As we do come into this busy part of the year, I would like to remind all our members of all types to keep mindful of your own, your crews and the wider public’s health and safety. We are seeing more swimmers enter the course and the ferries won’t stop any time soon so please keep mindful of this, complete the logs and the pre-row checks. And as a final note, we won the Top Dog back from Star so let’s keep it for a little bit. Cheers, Liam |
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Recent Events PORIRUA GOODWILL After the disappointment of cancellations through the winter, it was great that Porirua Goodwill regatta went ahead and we had the chance to test a few combinations. An enthusiastic contingent from St Mary's joined the Club adults, as did a few of the older athletes from St Pat's and Onslow. There was a nice feeling of parts of the club working together and having fun. We didn't have enough entries to win the regatta, but the men won all their races and the women almost all. It was a pity that the regatta was called off before some of the bigger races for 4s and 8s: the indications were that we were likely to have done well in those, too. Labour Weekend Training Camp Over Labour Weekend the adult squads and St. Pat's went up to Whanganui to escape the city and find some flat water. The adults based themselves at Union Boat Club and St. Pat's at Aramaho. Over the course of the weekend the crews clocked up 80km or more, in a variety of combinations from pairs and doubles all the way up to eights. For a few rows some of the older school girls from Onslow College and St Mary's joined in with the club and senior women, who had a lot of fun and learnt a little bit about the way the adults approach the sport. The weather was great, enabling us to keep to our programme and allowing the coaches to firm up their views on combinations for the bigger regattas on the run in to Christmas. Off the water, once again, it was great to have the whole group coming together for a barbecue. NORTON CUP & THE QUEEN'S CUP Last weekend saw the first of the 2k course regattas for the year. The Norton Cup was held in challenging conditions at Korokoro, with boat stopping gusts all the way down the course, creating some interesting racing. Throughout the day the points lead was yo-yoing back and forth between Star and Wellington, with it looking like Star would take the cup at midday. However some convincing first and second places later on in the day enabled Wellington to creep ahead and retain the cup, as well as bring the Top Dog back to its rightful home! At the end of the regatta the WRA also decided to run the annual Queen's Cup mixed eight race, which was held over 1km due to wind and water conditions. Wellington took a convincing early lead over Petone and Porirua and held this to win the cup for the third year in a row. |
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Queen's cup mixed eight crew |
School Reports With the new 2020/21 rowing season now underway, Wellington Rowing Club would like to welcome back our school crews from Onslow College, Samuel Marsden, St Mary's and St. Patricks. St Patrick's College It has been a great start to the season with a lot of new faces after a very successful 2019/20. We had an encouraging Spring camp, with the Learn to Row rowing mainly in 8x and 4x and with the Seniors based in 2x and 1xs. To keep skills going we took the most out of the labour weekend, spending another couple of days on the Whanganui river, topping up the necessary water mileage. This gave a chance for the squad to have a solid Norton Cup, with a few wins across various events. Good to see Ari Magasiva, recently selected to join the Central RPC, racing with some of our younger rowers. St Mary’s College Rowing St Mary’s College has had a good number of novices (12 in all) wanting to join the rowing squad this season. We also have six returning rowers of various ages and stages and two coxswains, Ngaio Reid, who is our joint Rowing Captain along with Ciara Fenwick. The coaching team this year consists of Kim O’Neill, Mereana Taylor and Cara McAree, a former rower and college student who stepped up to fill the gap during the winter months. Kim, Mereana and Cara are working together to make this season an enjoyable one for all. Rowing (or rather running) began early September for the whole squad. All were anxious to get onto camp in Whanganui in October as there had been very little opportunity to get in a boat on the water in Wellington due to the usual weather conditions! Thankfully we managed a whole camp of being in boats on the water and much fun was had by all despite the mileage that they covered during the camp, all were happy to be in boats and rowing, getting them onto the water took a village! One morning we had a lovely seal welcome us to the water, he/she had washed up on the bank and slept all day and then disappeared back into the river at the end of the day. Porirua Goodwill was, as always, a gentle opener to racing and a perfect place for introductory novice racing, but sadly was ‘blown out’ by the weather. Norton Cup was the first opportunity to race a 2000m course and despite a few hiccups along the way all were delighted with a Wellington win! Samuel Marsden After an unusual Winter, the rowing at Marsden is back. We had a great Spring camp, with seniors working in smaller boats to further improve their skills and with the Learn to Row having a proper taste of what rowing is all about. The highlight was our joint session with St Patricks in a couple of Octuples. Great to see so many smiles all around. With a squad of about 25 girls we are looking forward to the season ahead! Onslow College Onslow College Rowing has 46 rowers for the season which includes 15 very keen new novice rowers and a strong retention of existing rowers, having had only a handful of seniors leaving, all of whom are now helping in coaching roles, which is fantastic. Our Learn To Row camp was a successful off water event! Unfortunately we only had two on water days in Whanganui, so our coaches had their training skills stretched to create lots of variety for land based training. This included a trip to the Wanganui pool, which was a highlight... I'm sure the trip involved some training, in between using the hydro slide and the spa pool! The coaches also ran a land based version of our LTR regatta. Always very competitively fought and this year was no different, except the river race was replaced with gumboot throwing, a playground challenge, dry weetbix eating.... The winning mixed squad team won the converted Gumboot Trophy and got to write their names on a piece of strapping tape wrapped around a gumboot! Our rowers were rearing to go for their first regatta at Norton Cup which returned some great results including firsts in the Mens Int 4x, Mens Int 8+, Mens open 2-, Mens open 2x. Prior to this we had 2 of our senior boys (Josh and Ryan) join the lower North Island Interprovincial Champs group where they won all of their races and also won the Tonks small boat race of 28 lower north island entries. Everyone is working very hard early in the season, so we are looking forward to the Wellington Champs and the first Karapiro regatta in a few weeks time. |
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Lower North Island Interprovincials Team |
Master's Update With the cancellation of Masters Nationals in September, a replacement regatta was held at Whanganui on 19th September and then a friendly mixed crew row on “The Loop” at Foxton on the Sunday 20th September. While the Manawatu River was still high, the enjoyment of rowing on still waters out to where the Loop meets the larger river and back was much appreciated by WRC Masters. On 5th October, nine rowers descended on the Marlborough Sounds for a long distance race from Anakiwa (Outward Bound) to Picton, a distance of 12km. A really enjoyable race with the WRC eight passing many crews due to our astute coxswain Jane who cut a magnificent course. A big thanks to Picton for their hospitality (note that they were formed 1 year before WRC), Barry Sayers who arranged a boat through Blenheim Rowing Club for us and to Mark Brown for the amazing accommodation and boating/walking experiences. On the 17th October, Masters boated an eight in the Porirua Goodwill regatta. Rough water conditions but short course. For those rowing, it seemed the race was almost over before it had begun. We managed to chalk up a win and get back to shore in one piece. The regatta was cancelled after that race. We are now getting back to a rhythm and welcome all rowers over the age of 28 to come down and join us on the water or on lunchtime ergs. Contact Masters coordinator Richard May (richard.may@arcblue.co.nz) if interested. |
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Spotlight on: Sarah Wootton This month's Spotlight On focuses on Sarah Wootton, a member of the senior women's squad who this year decided to trial for Central RPC. After a long winter of training, Sarah was selected to row with the RPC squad in Blenheim along with Jamie Hindle-Daniels, Arie Magasiva, and Oliver Fahey. How has 2020 been for you? It’s been a challenging but exciting year. Definitely not what was expected and it’s required a lot of adaptation but it’s certainly had it’s good bits too. How have you been training this year? Has Covid changed that? I’ve been training hard this year. I set a few goals early on which I have been working towards and put a higher priority on my training and nutrition than previously. Although Covid didn’t change my goals, it definitely changed how and when I worked to achieve them. A lot more living room zoom workouts than I expected! Why did you choose rowing? I started out in rowing through the corporate rowing programme. It was awesome the first season but I really started to love it when I joined the novice women’s crew and started to take it a bit more seriously. What is your favourite rowing moment? Hard to say, I have many favourite moments and they each have their own reasons. One such would be rowing our 8 down the Thames from Reading to Henley in the UK with a UE boom in the boat, and another would be the club 8 final at the 2019 Nationals where the top 5 boats all finished within 2 seconds of each other. What was different about RPC winter training and how did it help you to succeed? I guess expectations were high, so we were encouraged to challenge ourselves and push harder than you usually would during winter training. Additionally, as we were each there for our own goals there was a lot more time in singles preparing for trials and focus on our individual ability to move a boat. What do you do to relax or have fun? Eat food and drink coffee with friends mostly! I like cross training, and did a lot of hill running and cycling during lockdown. I’m also into my art and reading. Which sport person do you admire? Eric Murray, he’s shown me that you can still succeed in high level international sport at the top level for years whilst also have a super relaxed and casual attitude. What is your favourite type of training? Anything and everything. Provided I get variety, good company and good endorphins then I’m happy. |
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Sarah competing at NZ Club champs in February this year. |
Fundraising Fund raising for a coxless quad is being kicked off with the sale of food (cookie Time cookies, OSM muesli bars, Whittackers chocolate, roti and butter chicken sauce). The committee will be sending out forms for people to fill out with all the goodies you can order, pay into the club account and collect from the club. Stay tuned for the food bonanza. We are also going to start a raffle /advertise the chance to buy a seat (get your name beside it) on the new coxless four. If it is something on your bucket list to have a seat with your name on it, this is your chance!! Lost Property There are a lot of lost property items, including a lot of good clothing, shoes and a ton of drink bottles and the season has only just started! If anyone has lost anything please contact Mitch at operations@wellingtonrowing.org.nz. If you can name any items of clothing and drink bottles then we can easily return them to their owner. Coaches Safety Boat courses are required for any new coaches. Please contact Mitch at operations@wellingtonrowing.org.nz for the next available course. Coaches, please ensure you that your police check is up to date (school coaches and helpers please check with your sports coordinator). The WRC secretary will be sending out a reminder to the sports coordinators of who we have on file for your squad so that we keep current with the changing personnel in the shed. Please ensure all new and intending coaches have an opportunity to go through the safety drill with Alan Mills. Allan is available (preferably Wednesday afternoons) to go through safety on the water and in the shed. |
Sad it's come to an end?Still wanting to find out more about the Wellington Rowing Club? Visit our website or our Facebook Page. |
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