Regatta schedule to go under review

David Ogilvie | 3rd February 2010

We have struggled for a number of seasons with the post-Christmas regattas.Bob EvansThe Wanganui Rowing Association will have a strong look at its post-Christmas regatta programme after dropping its two-day championships this weekend and replacing them with a Saturday handicap regatta.

President Bob Evans says the Jury Cup (late November/early December) works fine but at present the others need closer examination.

The Wanganui championships have been dropped this weekend because Wellington - combined successfully with Wanganui last year - decided to go their own way and selected the same date.

The Rosebowl regatta was also cancelled a few weeks ago due to lack of entries.

"We're just going to have a local derby on Saturday - although Clifton [Taranaki] will come down as well. We'll have a 9am start with a series of handicap races, but have yet to look at how we put those together to give everybody a reasonable amount of races," Evans said.

Of paramount importance is the need for races, with the national championships coming up in a couple of weeks - and they're the very reason for the regatta failures, because of the condensed prgrammes caused by the forthcoming world championships.

"We'll try to give everyone three or four decent races, but there will be no championships as such."

Evans said this did not necessarily mean the end of the Wanganui Championships.

"But we have to sit down and seriously review things - the Jury Cup works well and we get a great attendance to that, but we have struggled for a number of seasons with the post-Christmas regattas.

"I thought we had solved that last year with the combined thing with Wellington - but that hasn't worked this season, for whatever reason.

"We have to revisit it and make it work."