Best of the Boat Names

We have a new boat. It's been bought largely by donation and we'll have a blog post in the future about how AMAZINGLY AWESOME all our donors are and yada yada yada.

But in the meantime, it kicked off a bit of a discussion on the naming of boats.

The new vessel is an ex-WAIS heavyweight men's pair. Thus, the banter started with the appropriately masculine suggestion of "Speedophile".

Drawbacks include: there is already a Speedophile out there somewhere in the world (in Aberdeen, I'm told), and then someone sent this around, and that rapidly bought the discussion to an end:

One of the more amusing suggestions sent around when I was looking to name my own boat was the simple phrase "Meh." Whether winning, losing, training of whatever... meh.

Given the colour code of WARC being cardinal (crimson, or fire-engine red, depending on what mood we're in), there was the suggestion of "Quantum Tunnelling" from the Flash, which is possibly a little obscure and does reveal just now geeky the WARC family is. It would, however, give us legitimate reason to render our oars as illustrated. And that would be awesome.

The last time I laughed out loud at a boat name, it was "Don't Panic," printed upside-down. I think this would be most appropriate for a novice scull.

For the boats WARC does have that have been named outside the normal parameters of the boat naming committee, we already have some pretty good monikers.

Slippery When Wet, comes complete with the traffic icon.

The Usual Suspects, which was purchased with donations from... the Usual Suspects

Then there's the Three Sisters. This boat was named after the athletes of the family who donated it. Phil, Sarah and Bridget rowed for a collective five or so years at WARC, although all three girls were rarely seen together in a boat. All have gone to far flung corners of the world now, and we miss them... lots.

This pic is of Phil and Bridge at the 2010 Nationals in rAdelaide.

The Moose was originally supposed to be named the Andrew Taylor. That is, until Andrew took over and made bucketloads of "The Moose" stickers and put them everywhere. On the subject of Andrew, his single scull Hoot Owl takes its' name from a throwaway line in an unidentified American sitcom. Andrew proceeded to spend a week walking around the shed yelling "lady you a Hoot Owl!" until he was satisfied the name was ridiculous enough.

Then we have Nomatés, named for the mythical Greek God of single sculling. It's a fairly apt name for a boat class for those who don't play well with others.

And there is a small but vocal group who want to name any new boat Ghostrider.

Here's a few other WARC boat names:

Maali: Means "Black Swan" in Ngoongar and we did seek permission before we named her that. Being a women's eight, we also considered "Maali Mia" which is "Black Swan women" and also Octopussy. Because eight chicks in a boat.

Alan Salisbury: The Big Al and the Little Al are named after this guy who if you don't know who he is, you're probably reading the wrong blog.

Bill Irvine: At 83, Bill is known for saying to a room full of people: "Rowing: That's what turns me on."

And then there's the name of our speedboats, which we can't explain but it is what it is.

May Action

Action items and decisions summary from the committee. If you'd like more information or would like to get involved, please contact PBR on president@warowingclub.org or 0428 923 661.

Perth to Fremantle debrief

Two eights and four single scullers from WARC belted through the ~16km from the Old Swan Brewery to the Fremantle boatclub for the annual long distance eight race this year.

The race was taken out by Swan River Rowing Club for line honours and fastest men. The Swannies men's crew promptly demanded the resident cox - former Westie-ite and now captain of Team Navy TC Maguire - to wear the cup as a hat. She's not the first person to wear it as a hat. We are reliably informed there is photographic evidence of said cup being worn Viking-style by at least one WARCer (you know who you are... Michael Jones). But for your viewing pleasure, here's the pic of TC post-race.

Over for WARC, we accrued at least 87 points for the club, or perhaps 94. There seems to be some ongoing dispute over points allocated to the minor places for the W1X - which means your trustworthy author may have in fact managed to score us 7 points, not just the measly 4 as listed to the right. Either way, this does highlight how pretty much ridiculous this whole points thing is. But whatever, we still love it Here's a few other entertaining highlights from the day:

This is Jess Bowyer photobombing Nel's moment of glory. Nel was awarded the fastest women for the day - and beat Jess's previous record-winning row for the Perth to Fremantle by almost a minute. In 2012, Freo's golden girl JB cracked out a 68.47. Nels' time of 67.58 set - as far as we can tell - a new record for the distance. This pair of frenemies were of course part of the WA crew which brought home a bronze in the Victoria Cup at the Sydney International Rowing Regatta back in March.

El Capitane took out both line honours and fastest sculler, but would like to make the point that unlike everyone else, he did not cut any of the corners - not even Pt Resolution which just about every other sculler snuck around on the inside.

In the women's eight, we need to give a big shout-out to Meg Downes who is currently training for surfboat worlds but did eventually cave to immense peer pressure to jump in the boat, and to newcomer Claire Lea who also joined in the fray. Meg reports the row received an emotional uplift when a pod of dolphins started practicing acrobatics somewhere just after the halfway mark.

For the blokes, there was a rousing post-race debrief from Bill H and Mick D following what was, by all accounts, a fairly reasonable row.

For the number crunchers among you, here's some Perth to Freo stats for you:

And now, some special mentions:

• Ange Nicholson and Shaun Brady for volunteering out in the speedboats on a cold and blustery morning.
• Gen for spending her first day as an eighteen year old with us.
• Shaun for some great pix - thanks so much.
• Kirsty Augustson for winning the afters party.
• Nel for losing the afters party. #DontDrinkAndCycle
• Jimmy for driving the trailer.
• PK for lining up the magic bus, and Ray the driver for driving us on his day off.

Jess B and Jules for ditching Freo in the lead-up to the Derby and joining the fray at the Shag.

Everyone from around the world who put their best wishes to WARC via facebook, we miss you all and any time you're in the West, you're always welcome to return for a paddlin'.

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Membership 2014

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And here's why you should pay your fees...

Mettam: The sequel

We had nine boats compete in the 2014 Mettam headrace which is actually a fair fleet, although we felt pretty outnumbered by the heaving hoards of UWA athletes parked beside us at the traditional Deep Water Point launch point on the Canning River.

This is how we fared overall, picking up 38 points for our efforts which has still got us clear of ANA but behind the SRRC and UWABC powerhouses.

And here's all the results, as sorted and explained in a long Facebook thread by the Michael Jones: Mettam results

That said, before we even got to Canning, there was the Great Negotiation of Barrack Square. Turns out with a fully laden Wesley trailer, we've got about 10cm leeway to get around the corners of the revised Barrack Square layout. This pic has been sent off to the very accommodating Leighton Broad who are the contractors looking after the square, so they know just how close we are to taking out some of their awe-inspiring industrial orange bollard jungle.

Lou-the-driver seemed pretty relaxed about the whole thing, but then he wasn't watching $200K worth of carbon navigate through the veritable labyrinth.

Over at Canning, as always there weren't enough bolts. Sam promises he's buying some more washers in the next round of spare parts and big shout-out to UWA for lending us some spares so the Three Sisters could go complete with backstays.

This is the map we were all attempting to use to navigate. At least this one appears to be oriented north, although it is scaled to miles:

If I have a quiet day in the office, I might have a crack at redoing it. Anyway...

For those competing the two mile event, it was one of the more memorable start sequences of late - it actually took us longer to get in a numerical line of boats in start order than it did to do the race.

This was my take of the start line:

Start cam at the Mettam 2 mile. Rowing pic.twitter.com/ixU9Tsijo5

— WA Rowing Club (@WARowingClub) April 27, 2014

Sadly I didn't get around to turning on the GPS so I can't give you a nice line of where I went.

Another highlight was some good face-to-face rivalry between the UWA D2X- and WARC - the girls came over to chest-bump Pam in some sort of attempt at intimidation, but were then duly flogged by the girls in red. Well played.

Over in the novice boat, Shaun "Brady's ladies" Brady was in the cox seat of the Francis. Being about twice the size of each athlete in the boat, it's a good thing our hero has a teflon-coated ego. The last heckle heard from an umpire as Shaun steered the Pickle-winning quad through the Mt Henry Bridge sounded an awful lot like:

"Good thing you're making up for your weight with that line."

And that was one of the more savoury of the comments aimed at Shaun's robust stature during the day.

For debut athlete Satori, she reported Shaun kept the crew in good spirits but even his in-suppressible positivism could not take the pain of the final 500m away, and it was a tough battle into a rotten stiff wind to get across the line.

Nick and Sam belted the men's double scull to an easy win, backing up an appropriate amount of banter on the start line.

And for Janelle Austin, we have a sneaking suspicion she may have set something close to a Mettam W1X- record, however as the historical results of the race are no longer accessible, this isn't something we can substantiate. Her time would have got her third in the women's double, and second in the men's single.

At unloading, there was a Dalek. This isn't something we can explain, but here's the proof:

Mettam and the pickles

Once upon a time, back before the Rowing Online Management System, personal grade points, Champion Lakes and before WARC owned any European carbon at all, the Swan River Rowing Club's Mettam headrace had a fairly unusual tradition.

The tradition, for those who remember it, was the awarding of a large jar of pickles to the crew which recorded the slowest time over the three-mile stretch.

The purpose of the large jar of pickles was something I was never sure of - perhaps it was some sort of attempt by the Canning Bridge natives to humiliate those who did not win - a South Of The River haka-equivalent, if you will.

However the years they awarded it, WARC developed its own tradition in relation to those pickles. You see, WARC quite often "won" the jar of pickles: As one of the early headraces of the season, it was the race we encouraged our new athletes who had learned to row during the summer months to attempt.

It didn't end there: For quite a few years, the athletes who won the jar of pickles at the start of the season would then go on to pick up a State Championship at the end.

So for WARC, the Mettam has a special place in the calendar. This is a celebration of our new athletes who are just starting out on their rowing journey.

It is a comfortable distance to give those who haven't competed before to attempt, and gives them the opportunity to get out with the senior athletes and have a go, before we get to the more intense pennant regattas.

To those WARC athletes who did compete in their first race on Sunday (and would have won the pickle jar if the tradition continued): Congratulations! We hope you're nursing your new blisters with a sense of pride.

It would have been so much easier to think "oh, we're not experienced enough", "it's too hard", "it's too far" or any other zillion excuses: The win is in the attempt. Thank you.

(I should point out this was not the only tradition associated with the Mettam: It was also tradition for the old members of WARC to bellyache about how the Mettam should actually be a WARC-hosted headrace given George Mettam himself was a Westies life member, and as far as we know never did don the dark blue of SRRC. George won a Kings Cup or two, back in the days that meant competing in the UK and you can learn about him on page 16 of the Guy Negus History.).

The best #rowing vid you will see today

The following video was made by our own multimedia superstar, Dean Neal at Mayhem Enterprises. In Dean's day job, he's heavily involved in the promotion of motorsport, and as a result is probably the coolest member WARC has. In his downtime, Dean's known to pull on an oar from time to time, and then make videos like this of the experience.

This was made using four GoPro cameras and a chopper drone. Even @MannyTheRower - a prolific contributor to the twitter #rowing community - had some good things to say... Also apparently he covets the Big Al:

@WARowingClub How'd you get those aerial shots? Also, your eight is a beautiful boat.

— Manny (@MannyTheRower) April 23, 2014

Anyway, watch and enjoy - particularly the spectacular tri-angle shots of Jimmy's Boatrace2014-style crustacean impression.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yn2R3g5foFM