AQUATICS.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXV, Issue 199, 20 August 1904, Page 12

AQUATICS.

The thirty-fifth annual meeting of the Auckland Rowing Club took place during the week. The annural report stated that the financial position of the club was most satisfactory, in fact the last season on the whole afforded members far more gratification than any since the initiation of the club. The active membership is over 80. The receipts for the year amounted to £299 12/G, expenditure £233 5/8, leaving a credit balance of £06 6/10. The assets over liabilities are £315 6/10. The sum of £92 15/ was paid out in prize money during the season. The annual social in connection with the North Shore Yacht Club takes place at the Foresters' Hall, Devonport, next Wednesday, when the prizes won during the season will be presented. The fine yacht Privateer, recently purchased by a Christchureh syndicate, has arrived at Lyttelton from London. The Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron's annual meeting this year takes place on September 15. Tom Sullivan, the Auckland ex-cham-pion sculler of England, discoveror of George Towns, and trainer of many good amateur oarsmen, has been so long "on the shelf as regards serious racing, that it came as quite a surprise to learn that he has matched himself to row the Canadian, Eddie Durnan, who went to England as trainer of Mr Louis Scholes, the winner of the Diamond Sculls at Henley. The match is for £250 aside, and will be decided early next year in Canada, Sullivan being allowed £50 for expenses. Durnan, of course, will have a pull in the matter of age, but Sullivan is a man who has always taken care of himself, and is to-day probably very little inferior in strength or stamina than when he so easily beat George Butfear for the championship over the Thames course. Tom is a very shrewd business man, and unless he feels pretty certain of pulling off the match he would not put up £250 of his own money. At Henley Sullivan had good opportunities for getting a line as to Durnan's form, for Scholes could, and did, make his trainer extend himself. With no Australian swimmers to try their mettle, it would seem, says our London correspondent, that J. A. Jarvis and Dave Billington, the youthful Bacup swimmer, will between them "farm" all the British championships decided at greater distances than a furlong. It will make those Australian swimmers who have encountered the redoubtable Leicester swimmer, Mr J. A. Jarvis, in England during the past four or five years open their eyes when they hear that the champion has been beaten, and that by a one-legged man! Yet this thing has happened, writes our London correspondent, for at the Life Saving Society's gala in the Highgate Ponds, F. Gadsby, a Nottingham swimmer, possessing but one leg, just "pipped" Jarvis on the post in the 440 yds race for the Challenge Cup presented by the King. The feature of the Henley Regatta held this year was the defeat, already reported, of the Australian holder of the Diamond Sculls, Mr F. S. Keljy, of Balliol College. Oxford, by the Toronto sculler, Louis Scholes. Scholes, though by no means the finished exponent of the art of sculling that Kelly can claim to be, is very strong, plucky and a grand stayer, who can shift his boat at a great pace. This was shown in the final for the Diamonds, when the Canadian, hard hunted all the way by Cloutte, covered the course in the record time of Srnin 23sec. The conditions on the day, it is true, were all ln favour of fast times, but even so Howell's Bmin 29sec required a real good man to beat it.