Gold, gold, and another gold – it was a trifecta for Whakatāne Rowing Club crews at the North Island Club Championships at Lake Karapiro.

The regatta is the pinnacle event for clubs with the North and South Islands holding their regattas on the same weekend.

North Island Club Champs serves as a great regatta to increase the knowledge skills of all rowers at the top level of racing it is particularly beneficial for novice club members as they move into school racing season.

After a successful day racing on Friday in the heats and securing A and B finals, club members were shocked to have the regatta condensed to two days because of predicted bad weather.

Only A finals were raced, and all others were cancelled.  Races were set to run from 7:30am to 7.30pm on Saturday evening.

The condensed programme meant some rowers did not continue whilst others had multiple high-level races within a short time frame.

While not making it to the podium, the senior girls’ combination of Poppy-Mae Parks and Holly Hay made the A finals in both the woman’s club double scull and pair, placing fourth and fifth respectively.

Travis Talpos and Ash Schutz continued their success in the men’s club double scull to progress to the A Final, in a stroke for stroke race with St Georges, they pulled out with their final sprint to win the clubs first gold medal of the day.

Travis and Ash then combined with Alex Iremonger and Joseph Williams (Taupō Rowing Club) in the men’s coxless quad.

Racing the heat at 8.30am and making the A final; the crew had a long wait until 5.30pm.

The race proved difficult to watch for the supporters with three crews’ neck in neck down the course.

However, the sprint by the Whakatāne boys resulted in them securing the gold medal by 0.6 seconds. Coach Graham Watt was extremely proud of the crew.

It was also a long day for the intermediate boys’ crews who all made A finals and raced in combinations of quads, doubles, a four and the eight.

Their favoured event, however, was the intermediate octuple.

With a 7pm race time, it had been a long day for the eight rowers and cox Arthur Boyce, but they saved the best for last.

In a head-to-head battle with Aramoho-Wanganui, the two boats leap-frogged each other in the early stages of the race, but by halfway Whakatāne has taken a slight lead.  The lads held on to cross the line 0.3 second ahead to secure the gold medal.

It was a proud moment for coaches Gary McAdams and Leighton Hale who celebrated their first medal with this crew.

It was a long trip home to beat the incoming weather with the squad arriving back in Whakatāne late at night.

The club now looks forward to the National Rowing Championships in Twizel in a fortnight.

Whakatāne rowers traveling to represent club and province are Travis Talpos, Ash Schutz, Alex Iremonger and Poppy-Mae Parks (Whakatāne) and Ayla Rowe and Grace Iremonger (rowing for Bay of Plenty).