Last Weekend the Columba rowing squad travelled to Twizel for their first regatta of the season.

Heats were on Saturday, with all crews progressing to finals on Sunday. 

We had some impressive results over the weekend, including second place in the open men’s/women’s octuple/eight. The girls entered a senior eight in this race and were beaten only by a senior boys octuple. Coach Gabby also joined this race, and all the girls thoroughly enjoyed racing with her. This was also the first-ever regatta for our novices, who have only been training for three weeks. They enjoyed the racing and overall team experience and were glad to be able to do their first race in mixed fours with two seniors. The crews placed well, coming in 3rd, 4th, 8th and 10th on finals day. The novices also raced in U15 and Novice eight events on both days, coming in fifth and third in tough categories against octuples. 

Siena Snow and Caitlin O’Brien competed in the open women’s pair, coming in third in a very tightly contested race - less than three seconds separating the crews. They also placed third on Saturday in the open women’s double, missing second place by just 1.8 seconds. Gabby replaced an unwell Caitlin in this boat on Sunday, and they went on to win the race. Mary Gavin and Izzy Gallagher also competed in this event, improving from sixth to fifth over the two days. Siena and Caitlin were joined by Bridgette Sutton, Elyse Davey and cox Brooke Kendall to compete in the open women’s four, placing second on both days. Two other fours also competed in this race, coming in 7th and 8th. Millie Scott, Bridgette Sutton, Meg Macdougall, and Laura Sammut, also coxed by Brooke, competed in the girls U16 four, coming in second and making great technical improvements across the two days. 

The squad has another regatta at the Dunedin harbour this weekend so feel free to head along and support! 

Written by Bridgette Sutton.