Rowing back on list of Coast sporting pursuits

Press, 23 September 1980, Page 30

Rowing back on list of Coast sporting pursuits

By TIM DUNBAR Rowing seems certain to be back on the list of West Coast sporting pursuits this season after a 40,-year break. A meeting to be held m Westport tomorrow night should result in the revival of the Kawatiri Rowing Club which went into recess before World War IL Several rowers from the strong Avon club visited! the town at the week-end to help get Kawatiri going again — and they reported an excellent response. An Avon club spokesman, Mr John Wylie, said that about 25 '‘locals’’ (with a further 10 making apologies) had turned up to ask questions at a meeting in Westport on Friday night. Nearly as many people (including eight young girls) turned up for the actual rowing on Saturday and

Sunday and Mr Wylie expects the club to “kick off” with up to 16 members. “The material there is hell of a good,” Mr Wylie said. Such was the enthusiasm generated locally that a local menswear shop even managed to dig out half-a-dozen old Kawatiri Rowing Club monograms which must have attracted a fair amount of dust in the last few decades. Three 16-year-old girls had a real thrill in being able to row behind the big Hawarden man, Athol Earl, who had brought along his eights gold medal from the Munich Olympics.' • Mr Wylie said that rowing activity had gone on virtually non-stop (apart from the lunch break) from 10 a.m. to 4.30 p.m. on the Saturday. Earl and his Avon clubmate, Mark Gebbie, were particularly industrious over

the week-end with Gebbie, the Canterbury "Oarsman of the Year,” winning a newfound reputation as a coach. On the first day the river was “like a mill-pond,” but the weather was apparently “atrocious” on the Sunday — the forty-second day it had rained there in nearly, as many days. Kawatiri will start off with a reasonable plant — including an eight from Avon, a four from Cure (Kaiapoi), six oars from the Canterbury club arid a set from Christ’s College. It seems that the Buller Aquatic Club will allow the rowers to use a portion of its shed on the slipway to accommodate their boats. Mr Wylie is hopeful that the Kawatiri club will put in an appearance during the Canterbury Rowing Association’s pennant series at Kerrs Reach this season.