Racing photo ; Left to right; Harry Simperingham, Thomas O’Donnell,

RBHS ‘Old Boys’ row the Winter series

Harry Simperingham rows for the Heavyweight Men’s Crew at Yale University and is home for the American University summer holidays .He teamed up with his old rowing crew member Thomas O’Donnell who now rows for the Waikato Rowing Club, to ensure they each maintain their peak fitness, through the winter.

The Rotorua Boys High School ‘old boys’ rowed a pair, for the first time, in the Winter Series 2 held at Karapiro. “Thomas decided on a pair probably because it (the boat ) was available at his Waikato club” Harry said.  “We rowed a couple of days ahead of the regatta, with a fifteen kilometres row on Friday, and practiced our starts.”

The ‘starts’ practice is essential. Simperingham is 2 metres tall and O’Donnell is around 1.8 metres in height .Simperingham has a ‘wingspan’ of 2.1 metres, with O’Donnell’s proportionately less. The ‘longer’ rower can force the boat into a 180 degree spin off the start, unless they have a finely tuned balance. As each rower is a different physical size and length and in a pair they

each ‘sweep’ with one oar, their differing arm and leg lengths, need to be taken into account.

On Saturday they raced amongst a field of eight kiwi and Australian men’s and women’s ‘fours’ and ‘pairs’, with Simperingham in bow seat. In this seat, Simperingham  follows the stroke set by O’Donnell in front of him in ‘stroke’ seat. O’Donnell changed their seat positions for Sunday’s race believing the seat change would suit both rowers better. They raced a field of men’s and women’s ‘singles’, including Emma Twigg, finishing first..

“Thomas is the technically better rower and I have strength” Simperingham joked. ” The best rower is usually better in ‘stroke’ seat , but Thomas decided it would be better to rig the boat for me in ‘stroke’ .”

 “Harry is the longer rower and the longer rower is easier for me to follow, than to lead“ O’Donnell said. In bow, O’Donnell is be able to see the length of Harry’s stretch and he can adjust accordingly. With a strong rower like O’Donnell able to match him, Simperingham then has the freedom to use his entire length.

At the start ,the stronger or larger crewed boats; such as ‘eights’, ‘fours’ and ‘quads’ are handicapped.Their start is staggered and they set off after the smaller crews of ‘doubles’, ‘pairs’ and ‘singles’ . The winter series is used to give the New Zealand High Performance crews some valuable race time before they head off for the European regatta season and the Rowing World Championships in Bled. The Elites,  Under 23s, the Junior (U19) Squads, the Waikato Regional Performance Centre (RPC ) and Auckland RPC crews lined up to compete, and to spice it up, the Australian Olympic champion double scull of Brennan and Crawshay, and the Australian Junior Squad, were also in attendance .

Simperingham and O’Donnell will compete in the final Winter Series 3, at Karapiro, June 17^th - 19^th . Simperingham will return to Yale in August.. O’Donnell will trial for the  Waikato RPC  in September. Rotorua Rowing Club’s season begins soon. Novices contact Alastair Riddle, Head Coach; ariddle@pocket.co.nz