AKAROA ROWERS SHOW GOOD FORM.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 19267, 2 January 1931, Page 6

AKAROA ROWERS SHOW GOOD FORM.

CREW MAY COMPETE AT N.Z. championships.

Entry of the Akaroa maiden four at the New Zealand rowing championships at Wellington this year is made the more likely by the splendid form shown by the club’s crews at the Akaroa regatta yesterday. It is almost certain that the crew will compete at the Kaiapoi regatta this season, and if their good form is maintained they are likely to be sent to Wellington in quest of championship honours. Though crews were entered only in the junior, maiden and youths’ races yesterday, the club gained 19 points, three less than Union, who headed the list, with Avon second. Akaroa won the three maiden events, and were second in the youths’ double sculls. Famous Akaroa Sculler.

This revival of club form is due main? \y to the careful coaching of Mr George Whelch, the famous Akaroa sculler, who before the war took the New Zealand single sculling championship from Frogwell, and later challenged Dick Arnst for the world’s championship, but was defeated by a good margin. Mr Whelch, whose status as a result of those two races has recently been the subject of much correspondence among rowing associations, has thrown all his energies into giving the club a new lease of life in the last two or three years. Mr Whelch was responsible for another revival of interest in rowing in Akaroa in the late ’nineties, when as a young man he joined up as an active member. His prowess resulted in his winning every race for which he entered, and this stimulated his clubmates to emulate his victories. Later on, with J. Woodill, he won the New Zealand double sculling championship three times, and for three 3*ears he was the Dominion’s champion single sculler. One of the Strongest.

The Akaroa Club was at one time one of the strongest in New Zealand, and figured promiently in championships. At one regatta at Lyttelton early in this century the club won eight of the ten races on the programme. The clubs on the Avon River all competed at that fixture, as did the strong Cure (Kaiapoi) and Timaru Clubs. Since the beginning, of the war, however, the Akaroa Club has been more or less only a shadow of its former self, until the promise shown this season. Rowing races have been held on Akaroa Harbour for the last fifty years or so. They were first rowed in whaling boats, the crews being drawn from the sawmilling camps which dotted the Peninsula at a time when it was mostly thick bush. The first rowing club was founded in 1887, with a membership of about a dozen. These stalwarts built a small boathouse a few years later, and managed to displace many of the sailing events which were a feature of regatta programmes in those days. Ordinary fouroared boats were used, and then faster times were registered with the introduction of clinker boats. Prior to the use of clinkers the races were held with a turn round a buoy, but the longer clinker craft made it necessary for the course to be straight.

Regattas in those days were mixed affairs. If a sufficient number of trade boats were in the port a cutter’s race would be included. A man-o’-war was a frequent sight at a regatta, and the crews of these were given a race among themselves. These events became so popular that the Regatta Committee made it a custom to ask that a man-o’-war should be allowed to attend each regatta.