Championship Final
1st place Ports of the Caribbean, Ports of Auckland
2nd place CNI, CNI
3rd place Manaaki Group, Manaaki Group Holdings
4th place Relentless, Coca Cola

Plate Final
1st place Jack Sparrows, Whakatane District Council
2nd place Inferno, Coca Cola
3rd place Te Koru Canonballs, Physio Dept - Whk Hospital
4th place Te Koru Buccaneers, Physio Dept - Whk Hospital

Bowl Final
1st place Hey Maties, Te Puke Automotive Machining
2nd place Power Paddlers, Bay of Plenty Energy
3rd Place Prideaux Pirates, Prideaux & Co Chartered Accountants
4th place Pump it Up, Coca Cola

Koro Temai opened the day with a minute silence for Celia Bluegum, a respected member and supporter of our club who passed away just over two weeks ago.

At this time members of the Tarawera Outrigger Canoe Club pulled together to make the regatta a successful one.

As teams slowly arrived, the regatta got underway with 3 last minute registration from the Coca Cola Company. FUN, FUN, FUN was the intention of the day, as crews came dressed in theme with special mention to the two Whakatane Hospital – Physio department crews. As a means of rewards for their efforts, they were also awarded the top characters points, earning their respected crews 10 points each.

Preparation for the event was very rocky with the weather not promising to be adequate for the regatta to be run, over 15 crews pulling out due to obvious reasons, but as Saturday morning came around it was blue skies all round, although would’ve been ideal if the wind stayed away. However, a total of 12 crews battled through the wind and currents of the Whakatane river (Ohinemataroa), emerging with eventual Championship winners – Ports of the Caribbean from Ports of Auckland.

This crew wowed the crowd with their very unique chant earning their crew 20 well deserved points to go toward their tally in the running of the $1,000 cash prize. The crew from CNI, scraped in to take the cash prize from a well determined young lady from Te Koru Canonballs that got 3 out of the 6 questions asked in the quiz correct. It came down to a photo finish for the last question as I thought she once again nailed the task, but it was Brian from the CNI crew who dived into the water just a bit quicker than anyone else and answered the question correctly earning his crew the vital 20 points needed to get in front of the physio department crew. However, leading into the last novelty event (The pirates of the Caribbean quiz); the ports of the Caribbean crew were leading the points on 52 from CNI who had 49 and Te Koru Canonballs on 45.

All crews raced 5 races. Out of the 5 races the 3 best times for each crew were taken and an average time was taken to finalise the crew line ups in their respected final.

The Power Paddler crew had a bit of trouble on the start line in their third race and flipped just as the race was started, and with the CNI crew turning around half way through the race to help their fellow competitors, it earned them 15 points. Paddlers from other crews were shouting out give them 60 points, but 15 were more than sufficient.

It was a bit disappointing, as the regatta did not go as well as I would have hoped it would, as the judges who were appointed to judge the best dressed and chant were no shows, so were the ladies who were to run the admin, so times could be posted and everybody knew where they were in the standings. I would like to apologise to all those who were expecting instant results, as in the end I was all over the place trying to cover as many things as possible.

I would like to thank Matewai for timing all the races and Tracey for doing the tallies, as everything was all over the place, but we got through it all.

All results are attached. If anyone has any feedback on this regatta please contact me.

I hope to see you all again next year, as planning has begun to make the regatta more successful and better for all with more prizes on offer.


Raanj