WITH the OARSMEN

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 142, 6 September 1927, Page 11

WITH the OARSMEN

BY

“RIGGER"

Rowing in Auckland at the present time is still confined, more or less, to casual practice for the coming season. As is right and proper, all the clubs are giving their plant a thorough overhauling before the summer begins. The Waitemata Club on Sunday had a number of crews out, including the senior four, which is going to Melbourne, and which has been getting regular work in the evenings as well as at week-ends. Appointment of Manager The question of a manager for the trip to Melbourne has not yet been determined by Waitemata. The club captain, A. Mackay, who had been mentioned as a possibility, is doubtful of his ability to secure the necessary leave. Financial arrangements, also, have to be completed, and the club will welcome donations toward the cost of the crew’s venture. With Stevenson (sculler) and the senior crew both at Melbourne, Waitemata will be well represented on the Yarra in October, and will have at least one “barracker” in H. Cullen, a member of the club who intends making the trip. Sims Boat for St. George’s When the new Sims best and best four-oar, ordered by St. George’s and due in November, arrives in Auckland it will be examined with interest by members of other clubs. When Waitemata purchased a boat, not long ago, a Towns boat was ordered from Australia, though the English craft would have been only a few pounds more costly. It is curious, but true, that the freight on a boat imported from Australia is practically thfe same as one brought from England. Pars About Oarsmen St. George’s is likely, this year, to have a useful new member in D. Davies, who stroked the North Shore juniors in their win at the championships at Mercer last season. Davies may win a place in the St. George’s senior four. A. Sharpe, the well-known Wanganui sculler, is at present in Sydney. Sharpe turned professional after he had been training with Kadfield on the Wanganui, and a week after the big race took on Casey, one of Paddon’s pacers, who beat him. The Wanganui was in roaring flood, and the course was covered in amazing time. AUCKLAND’S SKIPPER A useful man in Auckland rowing is R. Stacey, captain of the Auckland Rowing Club, who is making a fine effort to restore the shed to its former eminent position. Auckland’s fortunes

languished as a result of internal dissentions a few years back, when the principle that the club was a rowing club, and a rowing club only, was emphatically affirmed. Stacey joined the club two or three seasons ago, and has dedeveloped into a lively oar. His fitness should always be an in-

spiration to the men rowing under him. ODDS AND ENDS St. George’s will hold its annual meeting in the first week in October. * * * W. Stevenson, sculler,. and his trainer, W. Logan, leave by the Niagara

next Monday, en route for Melbourne, j where Stevenson is compete in the | Henley-on-Yarra sculling events. The selection of the Auckland crew ! for the inter-provincial eight-oar race j next season will create much interest, i From a small beginning the race may j develop into one of the year’s great : sporting events, like the Australian j inter-State races, for which the trophy ] is the King’s Cup, won by Australian soldier-oarsmen at Henley in 1910. * * * AN INTERNATIONAL HENLEY Though Henley-on-Thames has attracted Continental, Australian and American crews on various occasions, it has never had the international flavour to the same degree as in 1919.

In the senior sculls, for which the trophy was the Kingswood Cup, won by Hadfield, there were entrants from America, Australia (A. S. Cox), Italy (E. Hones), Denmark (J. T. Muller), and New Zealand. H. H. L. Gollan, a Cambridge sculler, who Was beaten by the American, Wittington, is the son of Spencer Gollan, formerly a Hawke’s Bay station-owner, who in 18S8 rowed three for the Napier Rowing Club in its annual match against Gisborne. Lieutenant T. M. Nussey, the exEtonian, beaten by Hadfield in the final, was a member of the English army of occupation on the Rhine, and G. O. Nickalls, another defeated Englishman, later made history by being the first man authorised to broadcast the Oxford-Cambridge boat race. SENIOR CREWS Three, at least, of the Auckland clubs, should have senior crews on the water next season. Last summer Page, Woolhouse, Hargreaves and another formed the St. George’s senior crew, and had a row over at Ngaruawahia, though beaten at Hamilton. Soloman, whose record as a youth was exceptional, may find a place next summer. West End should again be able to enter Bright, Skinner, Payne and Johnston in senior events, and Waitemata should have their present crew little altered, if at all. North Shore, unfortunately, has no best and best boat. Hamilton had a fair crew last year in Tasker, Bayley, G. St. Clair and Curtis, but missed Sandos, who is farming, but should certainly be induced to keep up his rowing, as he is probably the finest oarsman in New Zealand to-day. COLLETT NOT COMING T. H. A. Collett, the English sculler, has written Henley-on-Yarra regatta committee regretting that, in consequence of his defeat in the Diamond Sculls, he cannot accept the invitation to go to Melbourne to compete at Henley-on-Yarra. The committee has cabled the president of the Argonaut R.C., Toronto, inviting J. Wright, Collett’s victor, to compete, but Wright also, had to decline.