NUMBERS were down slightly on 2016 but that did not stop the Dimboola Rowing Club from hosting a successful annual regatta at the weekend.
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Club secretary John Nichols said the number of entrants in 2016 had been the best for a number of years.
“We had one school from Melbourne bump the numbers up at last year’s regatta,” he said.
“Losing that one school meant losing probably eight or ten entries. We were still really pleased because you always have numbers fluctuating from year to year.
On the water it was Corio Bay Composite who took the honours in the regattas premier event, the male open coxed quad scull.
There was only one entrant for the female equivalent which lead to it not being contested.
Nichols said numbers remained strong for the lower grades.
“In the D Grade we had to break some of them up into two divisions,” he said.
“We normally have three heats of three so if we have more than nine we had to break it up into divisions.
“Rowing is a sport where a lot of school kids get involved and they are virtually jumping into a state wide competition all the time which makes it harder to win.”
The Dimboola Rowing Club was represented well by a newly formed under-17 female quad scull team who impressed on the water.
“They hadn’t had a huge amount of training but they rowed extremely well,” Nichols said. “The important thing though was that they were all really enjoying it. There is no future for the club without young rowers coming through; we are always looking for new young rowers, or rowers of any age.”
Nichols said weather conditions were ideal for the 130th regatta.
“It was a bit hot on Sunday but that wasn’t really too bad when the cloud cover helped,” he said.
He said he received nothing but positive feedback from people at the regatta.
“Rowing Victoria had a post up on their Facebook page which really praised the regatta, I was really pleased by that,” he said.
“We were also very pleased by the work of the Rowing Victoria official who run the races all day.
“We were shorthanded ourselves but we had great support from so many people.”
Dimboola Primary School ran the food booth, St Peters Lutheran Primary school ran the evening meal and the Dimboola sporting club ran the Sunday breakfast.
“The great support we have from other organisations made things run more smoothly,” he said.
Nichols said anyone that wanted to get started in rowing was more than welcome to approach club captains.
“They can come down here on any Sunday morning,” he said.