Untitled

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XII, Issue 31, 5 February 1877, Page 2

To, the Editor op the 'Evening Mail.' Sir,— -I have a few remarks •to make in connection with our late regatta. lam ranch surprised that some comment has not already been made, because lam sure that there is matter enough for it. If subjects like regattas are not fully spoken of, and faults here and there pointed out, how can we expect to improve? First comes the Champion Whaleboat race. The public know how that was started, also how the course was laid out. Now I have not any fault to find with the laying out of the course nbr the start, but I [ have very great faults to find with the order in which the boats were placed. Some one of the Committee, I believe, drew the tickets for places. My ticket was marked No. I (next the wharf), this was the outside boat of all. Did ever any person at all acquainted with regatta matters ever see No. 1 placed outside? There were six boats started all on a straight line to puli a round course. Here, now, is where the fault lies, for is ' . not quite evident to any person endowed with common sense that if six boats start in this manner, the boat nearest the first turnI ing buoy has exactly, six boat's lengths start of the outside boat, besides the space between each boat that must be allowed for the oars, which would make nearer twelve boats' lengths of a start. I will put the matter in a different manner: — We will suppose the line of boats to represent a company of soldiers. The word "march" is given, and they all march straight to their front; on approaching the j first turning point, the word "left wheel" i 3 ! gived, and the pivot man marks time on his own ground in order to let the marching flank come round. Not so the pivot boat, which darts round, while the unfortunate I outside boats are either fouling each other, 07 waiting until the body of the boats get round the buoy. The right way in my opinion to start boats in this kind of race is I en echelon, or to row the race in heats over a straight course when there are more than three boats. If this had been done Nelson would again have asserted her supremacy in the wha'.eboat race. There is also another grievance of which I have a just right to complain, and that is the amount of support which I have received from the Rowing Club of Nelson, or those who had authority to order boats. I am quite sure that there are a number of gentlemen in the Nelson Rowing Club who would rather have seen the large amount of money subscribed by the Club spent in Nelson among Nelson residents than sent away out of the place. What did foreign boatbuilder3 ever do for Nelson? Have they ever sent a boat that has won honors for Nelson? have not the locally built boats always beat the imported ones? and did not the Colonist whaleboat (which was built in a few days) win interprovincial honors for Nelson in Wellington last year, and also 'win the year before in Nelson although rowed by a Wellington crew? If these matters are not jenough to feel grieved about, then I do not kuow what 1 is. I wonder if the Argus eyes of those gentlemen who professed to give the "straight tip " perceived the vast difference in the workmanship displayed in the whaleboats. I think that workmanship ought to commend itself to the public, yet I have never seen any comment upon it in any of our papers. I am, &c, T. R. H. Tatlok, Boatbuilder. [The above letter was received several days ago, but we have been unahle to find space for it before.— Ed. N.E.M.] -