The South Island Championships are finished for another year. After last year's unsual COVID-19 regatta things were back to normal this year.
Unfortunately, that included the weather being not entirely cooperative this year. The wind rose on Saturday afternoon putting an early halt to racing and leading to some finals being shifted to Sunday morning and a planned earlier start to that day. The weather had other ideas but racing was only delayed 30 minutes on Sunday morning and that lost time was slowly caught up over the remainder of the day, which finished on time.
Wakatipu High School won the Points Bell for Champion School of the regatta; improving on last year's second place. Last year's winner Rangi Ruru Girls School was second. Followed by Timaru Boys High School in third.
As usual the standard of competition was high. But the 12 pennant events (those with unrestricted entry i.e. U18, excl novice) were shared between just 5 different schools. RRGS, STBD and WAKA each managed to win 3 events. COLU won 2 events. OGHS won 1.
Rangi Ruru Girls School again won the Girls Under-18 Eightsand this year St Bedes College won the Boys Under-18 Eights.
Next up is a chance for schools to compete against their North Island counterparts up at Lake Karāpiro at the 2023 Aon Maadi Regatta.
Live results were available during the regatta. Results can be found on the rowIT website: rowit.nz/siss2023/results
Confused by the colors or codes? There's a list of school codes and colours, as well a page with indicative images of school colours.
Karāpiro Rowing have provided boat park information for downloading. Please read this document for information about how the boat park will operate during Maadi (and NISSC).
At close of entries there are 1133 students from 44 schools entered in 2962 seats in 807 crews.
Entry fees (exclusive of GST) for the regatta were set by members at the 2023 SGM: 1X $19, 2X/2- $21, 4X+/4+ $31, 8X+/8+ $44, amenity $25 per student.
There is an entry limit of 2 crews per event per school; except in eights and octuples, which have a limit of 4 crews.
School age rowers should only be racing 2 events at a Championships regatta. A few rowers could be considered for 3 events; none should be doing more.
Schools are limited to 3 "new" students in an eight and 1 "new" student in other boats ("new" students are those who've swapped schools or come from overseas and looks back over the past 2 years). There is now also a limit of 2 students with an NZSSSC-issued PCRE per crew (1 in singles!).
While South Island schools are competing on Lake Ruataniwha for recognition as the best the South Island has to offer their North Island counter-parts will do the same thing up at the 2023 Aon North Island Champs regattas on Lake Karāpiro. Keep a watch on both regattas for indicators of who may claim the top spot at Maadi!
There were 1079 students from 43 schools entered in 3145 seats in 834 crews. 179 races were held to complete the regatta and find the winners of all 52 events.
This New Zealand Secondary Schools Rowing Association regatta is sanctioned by the New Zealand Secondary Schools Sports Council.
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