ROWING COMPLAINT

Dominion, Volume 30, Issue 65, 10 December 1936, Page 17

ROWING COMPLAINT

Concern at Way Regattas Are Conducted QUESTION OF STARTING Concern at the way the Wellington Rowing Association’s regattas had been conducted recently was expressed in a letter from the Wellington Rowing Club which came before a meeting of the association last night. The complaint made was that a number of crews had been unable to compete because of insufficient time to reach the starting-line. It was claimed that this was excessive. It was decided to instruct the starter to wait for crews which were within reasonable distance of the post at the time fixed for the start of the race. In the letter it was stated it was feared that if such a state of affairs continued, crews coming for the annual Wellington regatta would suffer. While it was disappointing to train for an ordinary inter-club regatta and be left at the post, it was even worse to spend time and money attending open regattas to suffer this. It was considered by the club that the starter should be givOn more latitude than he had had in the past, and if a crew was within reasonable distance of the start, he should be able to delay the race to enable them to compete. “I think they are perfectly right," said the chairman, Mr. S. I. Kid'J. “There have been too many crews cut out during the past two years.” It was stated that one cause of the trouble was a shortage of coxswains. “We have made too much of a job of pleasing the publie, which we never get,” said Mr. H. J. Luke. “We should give more consideration to the oarsmen.”