Masters Rowers Take on The Yarra in Melbourne

A group of Southern women masters rowers took their skills overseas in November to tackle the Head of the Yarra race in Melbourne.

Jacqui van Dam, Cecilia Russell, Katrina Allan, and Virginia Sweney teamed up with their original coxswain Paula Burke from back in high school, to enter their first international race.

Being an 8+ squad race they then imported Bridget McArthur from North End in Dunedin, Robyn Cameron from Port Chalmers, Maude O’Connell from Cromwell and Amanda Puddle from Cambridge for the 8km race.

The iconic regatta that has been going since 1956, was very technical and featured many corners and bridges that the coxswain’s had to negotiate.

“Our coxswain had the course all mapped well in advance and all the angles had to be worked out,” Jacqui said.

Entered into the E-age group with others in their 50s and 60s, they were racing against 19 other teams - which was the largest group in the competition.

Jacqui said they started off the race strong “and we were smashing it home,” even rowing past other boats in groups that left before them in the time trials.

Sitting in about 2nd place, and heading into the last 2.5kmm Paula had negotiated the last big bend and came out of it beautifully, but the pin on the rudder string popped and they lost their steering.

Having to steer the boat using body weight, they managed to pull up to a pontoon and were lucky not to crash in the process.

Using some kiwi ingenuity, they used a bungi cord as a temporary fix and found a gap on the river to re-enter the race again.

“We decided, right, we’re going to finish the race in style.  We got the fire in our bellies,” she said.

Finishing the best they could, the group think they probably lost about 8-10 minutes with their breakdown.  “We knew we were right up there.”

But Jacqui said there could have been many others reasons not to finish - about 60 competitors were treated for heat stroke, and the main races which catered for the elite younger rowers were cancelled because of the heat wave.

They’ll probably be back, “we’ve got unfinished business here,” she said.

There’s also other rowing events in the pipeline over the next year, including the New Zealand Masters in September 2025.

“We’ve got a real taste of international events now.”  She said the Head of the Charles in Boston was another favourite on their list - and slightly shorter, being only 5km.

“We’d quite like to get to that at some stage.”   

Jacqui said the camaraderie within their group was what kept them going strong, and it was nice to also have other people comment on how well they all got on together.

“It was so cool to be away with a real neat group of people.”