rowIT.nz

The weather committee has decided to not hold the regatta this weekend.

The wind forecast for Saturday 11th is around the extremes of our thresholds and it is the gusts and rowers not having any race experience this season that led the committee to the decision. A southerly is forecast for Sunday 12th and regattas can only be run at Korokoro when Wellington is an Orange Light district.

Planning to possibly hold the regatta on the weekend of the 18th is being pursued with a number of matters having to be addressed including club participation.


It is timely to remind the Board and the local rowing fraternity in general that the weather committee makes the decision based on the safety of holding a regatta, not the safety of going rowing.

A regatta needs consistently good conditions over and around the full course. Both to provide fair racing for crews of all levels of ability and experience. And so a limited number of support vessels can manage a large number of crews on the water.

The RNZ Safety System provides crews that are training with close support. And each support vessel is responsible for no more than 3 crews. This is closer supervision than possible during a regatta.

When training, crews are also not constrained to the course to find good water. And they can row to the conditions instead of trying to race through them.

Coaches going training also have the advantage of making their decisions at the time they go on the water and taking into account the capability of the specific crews they are supervising.

A decision that the forecast does not support going ahead with a regatta is not a decision that conditions will be unsafe for training.

Season’s Greetings

This regatta has been uncancelled and rescheduled from 13 November to 11 December. This is instead of postponing the Wellington Provincial Championships. The regatta change is because several squads can't attend the new date. A similar thing happened in 2016.

Due to current Covid19 Alert Level settings WRA is unable to conduct a regatta of this size. With no real opportunity to reschedule the regatta it has been cancelled.