Flat Water - Fast Times

The Canadian National Championships ( Canadina Henley)  -Silver Medal for Waiariki RC

 Silver for the men's Quad, beaten by Peterborough RC, with a time of 5:53.  The local club, St Catherines RC, were third.

 Ben has finished 2nd in the Mens Senior Single - the top race for scullers at the Regatta.  He was beaten by the local, Chis Jarvis, from the St Catherines club.  Patrick Close from Indianapolis was third.

The Quad starts its campaign tonight NZ time.

Ben has progressed through to the finals with comfortable wins at heats and semi final levels - both his times were the fastest in the event for the level.  Hopefully this is good sign for the final on thursday Canadian time. (7:12:00 in the semi).  Conditions looked testing for the heats with pics of sculling boats being brought back on rescue craft!

Ben Races his heat on 4th, First 3 to the semis - No repechage, Semis on 5th (3 of them), 1-2 to the Final, Final on the 6th.

This means that athletes who race in the small boats are available to race in the big boats which start on the following day.  This is similar to the Australian Model for a regatta.

The Quad on the 7th

We don't know how lucky we are here in NZ.  Our National Championships have the following entry fees:

 Eights $58.00 +GST
Fours / Quads $45.00 +GST
Pairs / Doubles $36.00 +GST
Singles $28.00 +GST

For the Canadian Henley ( Their Nationals) they are:

Singles:     $55.00 ($NZ 78)
Doubles:     $75.00 ($NZ 106)
Pairs:     $75.00
Fours:     $95.00 ($NZ 135)
Cox Fours:     $95.00
Quads:     $95.00
Eights:     $125.00 ($NZ 178)

Ben Hammond is in an Event with 53 entries - you do the maths. 

In General terms perhaps our regattas  would be a better product if we were prepared to pay a more appropriate entry fee and there would not be the insistence that athletes enter more than a couple of events. A regatta could be a more meaningful challenge

Waiariki will be representd by two crews:

James Dalinger, Steve Cottle, Paul Gerritsen and Jamie Twigg in the quad and Ben Hammond ben Hammond in the single.  For a background story see this Link.

The regatta starts on 2nd August with the Masters events and then the main body of the regatta will start on tuesday finishing on Sunday.

We hope that Rob will tweet this regatta as well as  the Juniors