WITH the OARSMEN

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 208, 22 November 1927, Page 16

WITH the OARSMEN

BY

“RIGGER”

SHORE TRIALS Shore will conduct trials for the Kohn Cups next Saturday. There are five trophies, including- one for the coxswain, a very thoughtful provision on the part of the donor. ST.. GEORGE’S OPENING On Saturday, December 3, the St. George’s Bay Club will hold its official opening. Last Saturday trial fours were rowed, but on the opening day proper the Coates cup and caps, donated by Sir James Coates, will be competed for. SEADOGS JOIN UP The men of the Devonport Naval Base are showing close interest in the doings of North Shore. Crews from the Laburnum, Philomel (2), and Veronica took part in the naval cutter race on Saturday. Petty-Officers Everson and Hutton and Seaman Hathaway have lately joined the club. DAVIES KEEN I If keenness counts then W. Davies, of North Shore should achieve success as a sculler. His new Towns boat, a beautiful bit of work, cost him £45, and he has his own sculls as well. Concentrating on sculling because Shore has no senior crew—he reached senior status by stroking the successful Shore juniors last year— Davies has already a record as a club sculler. Ho won the Karo Cup at North Shore in 1924-25, and the Cameron Cup last season. KEEN JUNIOR RACING There should be particularly keiSn junior racing in the forthcoming regatta season. Each of the Waitemata Clubs will have crews, and Tauranga and Hamilton will also be represented'. Tauranga’s crew will be stroked by Tonkin, club captain for some seasons past, whose three will be Turner, of single sculling fame. The two and bow were together last season in maiden pairs and doubles. J* * * RUSSELL REGATTA CUP Hamilton at present holds the Basil Rope Cup, won twice in succession by Hamilton light maiden crews at the Russell Regatta. A condition of the cup is that a club winning it on three conseoutivo occasions retains it. By the cancellation of the rowing events at Russell Hamilton may be deprived of an excellent chance of completing the necessary series of wins, but it is possible the race may this season be rowed at Whangarei. The* crew that won last season was: N. Bradley (str.), R. Styles, W. Jonson, M. McKenzie. SCHOOL ROWING In the annual between Christ’s College and Wanganui Collegiate School, the only New Zealand secondary schools now practising rowing as a school sport, Auckland will be represented by J. W. Donald, number three in the Wanganui crew. Donald is a fine Rugby threequarter, as well as a crack oarsman, and is a son of Mr. J. Donald, the Auckland sportsman. The stroke of the Wanganui crew is W. R. Taylor, of Hamilton, whose older brother, J. M. Taylor, stroked the crew last year and in the two preceding years, and is considered to be the finest stroke-oarsmen ever trained at 'Wanganui. NORTH SHORE LOSSES The Shore Club suffered a severe loss, in the off-season, through the departure from Auckland of K. Hahn and

U. Meredith, both of whom were'in the Shore junior crew which won at Hamilton (the race that caused all the stir) and in the A.R.A. championships at Mercer. Hahn, who now lives in Sydney, js a cousin of Lloyd Hahn, the well-known American runner, and MerediUji is the son of a man well known in public affairs in Samoa, where the ex-Shore man is now residing. WHANGAREI REGATTA As was forecasted some time ago, prize-money for rowing events at the Whangarei Regatta is, according to the

tentative schedule, not up to the former offering. As the association has faced peculiar difficulties, it is to be hoped that oarsmen will nevertheless support the fixture, the programme for which has yet to be endorsed by the Auckland Association. Incidentally, one anomaly the association will probably correct is the £S offered for the heavy maiden fours, while only £7 is offered for the junior fours. According to accepted standards the junior race should be awarded the larger donation. * * * DAYLIGHT-SAVING TRIALS Starting- to-morrow Auckland will be the first local club to take advantage of daylight saving by instituting evening trials. Heats will be rowed to-morrow and on Thursday over a full mile course along the railway embankment, and the final will probably be staged next week. Heats will be rowed at 6 o’clock each evening, and the following are the crews: Wednesday.—R. Stacey (str.), R. Martin, G. Jonson, F. Brand; G. Cleal (str.), J. McComish, H. Goldwater, A. Doull; J. Bygate (str.), R. Marion, H. Duck, R. Chappell. Thursday. —A. Ross (str.), T. Wiglev, E. Thorburn, T. Morgan; W. Eaddy (str.), A. Andrews, A. Coutts, R. Leabourn. Emergencies.—H. Pierce, G. Dugmore. NEW SIMS FOUR The new Sims best and best, which St. George’s recently landed, has been housed at the shed, and will be thoroughly acclimatised before it is taken out. The craft’s fine lines have gon general admiration. Most of the metal fittings are *of specially specified noncorrosive gunmetal, and the leather shoes on the stertellers are of the latest type. The boat cost the club £ll6, and in so fine a craft the senior four, Page, Soloman, Woolhouse and Hargreaves, should a good account of themselves. Soloman, at three, may prove to be just the man the crew has been awaiting. * • * IN BLUE AND GOLD Stroke and three in the Waitemata junior crew for this season are the same as in last year’s crew, C. G. Fearon'and J. M. Stevenson. $H\ R. Impey, who was bow in several races, is abroad, and J. Cotterill has returned to Wanganui. H. Cullen, who is placed at bow this season, was in the crew in several events last year, and C. Read, at two, has had a good record in other seasons,, particularly as a youth. This season he had talked of not rowing serjously, but since the trials started he has been turning out with considerable zest, and as a, stroke in those events has enjoyed considerable success. AUCKLAND cr.EWS ACTIVE The Auckland Club had a full turnout of regatta crews over the week-end. The light and heavy maidens, youths, and junior fours, as well as the maiden doubles crew were out on Sunday morning and paddled up toward Orakei, where there was a swell apparent, though under the embankment conditions were satisfactory. Cleal and McComish, the maiden doubles pair for Auckland, are moving together well. One of their opposition crews, V. Smith and Brooker, of Waitemata, was also out. These two should make an excellent combination. Both are of powerful build.* * s* # ODDS AND ENDS Quinn, Waitemata, is at present out of action through an injured hand. • • • Bygate, Auckland, is stroking a crew, for the first time, in the trials to start to-morrow night. * * * The Conway family was well represented at West End’s opening. Two sons stripped with their father, W. Conway, for the occasion.^ St. George’s trials on Saturday were over the full mile —a good “pipeopener” for the Judge’s Bay club. V. Smith and T. Johnston, Waitemata, seniors, have not yet been out since their Melbourne trip. WAITEMATA ON THE WATER Waitemata crews on the water on Sunday included the heavy and light maidens, maiden doubles, and junior four. The light maidens, stroked by Beasley, are an exceptionally promising set, and already get pronounced lift into their stroke. The junior four out on Sunday comprised Fearon (str.). C. Read, Lowe and. Cullen, J. Stevenson being absent There is a possibility that Lowe may yet be found a seat in the crew, but he ability to travel to outside regattas. HAMILTON JOTTINGS - F. Corlett, who had been talking of retiring, will be rowing again this season. Like his clubmate, W. Bayly, who captained the Southern trial team that appeared at Eden Park, Corlett is a well-known senior footballer, and a useful man with the oar. C. D. Molesworth is vice-captain of the shed, and contrives to find time for a great deal of coaching, which is invaluable to the club. B. Waters should be a good maiden scullex*. As an oarsman, he was successful in youths’ and maiden crews in the 1925-26 season. McNelie, formerly of Waitemata, will be rowing for Hamilton this season. OLD-TIMERS AT WEST END Among the interested spectators at the West End Club’s “at home” on Saturday afternoon was Mr. E. Magee, a veteran oarsman from Greymouth. Despite his 62 years, he could have “pulled many a younger man off the water” as one of the members of the club remarked. There is plenty of dash about him still. When the call came for entries for the veterans’ fours he stripped off and took a seat in the winning boat. Another veteran who was present, . was Mr. Bert Andrews, of the 'Waitemata Club, who is 51 years of age. He, also, competed in the veterans’ race. • * * VETERANS IN ACTION A veterans’ four that turned out from the Waitemata shed on Sunday morning consisted of Bert Andrews (str.), C. Cairns, Ghent, and N. Doubleday. Doubleday, hardly to be classed as a veteran, turned out to complete the crew, his first row* since his return from Melbourne. A. W. Andrews. who stroked the crew, was one of F. Herring’s Waitemata crew, which won the champion

fours at Mercer in 1909, the only occasion on which the champion fours title has come to Auckland. The season before, at *Xapier. the Waitemata men had been beaten by J. M. Jackson’s Blenheim crew, but at Mercer, by a canvas, they reversed the verdict. HISTORIC RACE Stroke of the crew beaten by the Waitemata four on that occasion was J. M. Jackson, now skipper of the tug Akaroa, which plies on the Waitemata under the flag of the Parker Lamb Timber Company. The race at Mercer was rowed on February 13. a lucky day for Waitemata, but an unlucky day for Jackson. He was suspended in 1910 for alleged professionalism, and not until many years later was the ban Herring’s crew was: F. Herring (str.), J. McGuire, J. Parkinson, A. W. Andrews (bow), and W. Ghent (cox). Ghent later rowed in a successful light maiden crew, which carried all before it about 1918*-!9. He was at two in the scratch crew which turned out on Sunda y. ' DIGGER OARSMAN OUT Still another veteran to appear on Saturday was S. B. .R. Rutledge, who stroked a crew at North Shore. Rutledge was a North Shore maiden oarsman, in a crew which won at Whangarei, in. the 1914-15 season. He then went to the war, and rowed six in the historic eight which won the interallied race on the Seine. As a momento of that performance the ex-Shore man possesses one of the handsome cups presented to each member of the crew. The silverware is ornamented with a crest in coloured enamel, and bears in Frenc.h a legend beginning: “Traversee de Paris, A L’avron, huit rameurs Epreuve,” which means something about a race through Paris for crews of eight oarsmen. =? * * • EIGHTS—IN THE SHEDS TJie official eights were to have had an outing on Saturday, .but the water was too rough for them —a shining example of the folly of purchasing best and best eights when clinker boats would have given immeasurably better service. In reply to a correspondent: Thirteen eights, of which Auckland has two, were purchased by the New Zealand Association last year. Two each went to Auckland, Wanganui, Wellington. Marlborough (one at Picton and one at Blenheim) and Christchurch and Dunedin, while the 13th ship, a special racing eight, was retained in Wellington for the use of New Zealand representative crews. * * • PROVINCIAL EIGHTS The eights will get their first official outing when the Provincial championships are staged at Wellington next Easter. Each association will probably take its own eight to Port Nicholson for the occasion. The argument, heard in favour of the best boats, that clinker boats could not have been built in sections, is discounted by the fact that Mildura (Victoria) recently had a sectional clinker eight built by G. Towns. It was the first clinked boat Towns had ever built. He specialises in best and best craft, fulfilling the strong demand from Sydney, where no clinker boats, not even for practice, are employed by the clubs.

NEW CLINKER FOURS FOR NORTH SHORE

North Shore has on order two clinker fours which will, on arrival, greatly strengthen the club’s plant. When the boats arrive—they are being built in Melbourne by Edwards — more room will be required in the shed, and an extension on the city side is contemplated. The price of the new boats is each, on ship at Melbourne. For New Zealand built boats the quote was £62. To defray the cost of the new craft, involving expenditure of over £l3O, North Shore has been running a successful series of dances, which have already brought in nearly £IOO in only two or three months. The principal factor in this success has been a tireless ladies’ committee, consisting of Mesdames Seagar, Farquarson, Wrigley, Cleland, Olliver, and the Misses Tatton, Wrigley, Middleditch, Johnson. Bagnall, and Melville. The club committee assisting consists of Messrs. Farquarson, McDuff, "Wrigley, Challinor, Moody, Norris.