2023 Hong Kong Indoor Rowing Championships

WORDS: MICHAEL JOHNSON | IMAGES: HKCRA | WAN NG, PINKY

TSE

Agonising pain, strained muscles, a thirst for air, voices shouting in your head to stop, to keep control, to keep going and to push harder – all at the same time. That's the horror of the 2,000m ergo test. It really isn’t fun in any normal sense, but in the world of competitive rowing, it’s the closest you can get to the physical and psychological torment of a real rowing race – and we LOVE it!

To broaden appeal, the first day featured 500m sprint races, with the full 2k held the following day. 500m sounds easy, but having done it, those metres / seconds seem to tick by in slow motion, and when your body realises the shock of what is happening, everything gets very intense very quickly and you are literally gasping for air and muscles fully drained… with likely 150m still to go… surprise surprise, it’s still not fun.

If you prefer intense suffering – the 500m is for you. If you want that suffering to linger and crescendo to the ultimate in exhaustion, nothing beats the 2k. Better still, do both!

The Hong Kong Indoor Rowing Champsionships is open to all, so as well as local and some international rowers, there were gym junkies from various clubs and schools as well as pros from the Fire Services and Police.

To keep things fair, there were numerous age categories from juniors up to the wisest of the ancients. With medals for gold, silver and bronze, it

DATE 25 March

EVENT HK Indoor Rowing Champs (Day 1)

• Men 40–49 years old – 500m

◦ G old, William Vanbergen

◦ Silver, Wan Ng

• Men 55–59 years old – 500m

◦ G old, Michael Johnson

• Women 30–39 years old – 500m

◦ G old, Anna Fisher

◦ Broke the HK indoor local entry record

RESULT

◦ Broke the HK indoor all participants entry record

• Overall Women 500m champion

◦ A nna Fisher

26 March was another winning day for the RHKYC rowing section, with a haul of medals and many outstanding achievements.

Special mention to Anna Fisher, who set new Hong Kong women’s records in both the 500m (1m 41.2s) and also the 2,000m (7m 28.8s) events. Fantastic!

Five team members were also awarded special medals for achieving within 83% of the 2000m world record for their age category –Anna Fisher, Vivian Leung, Richard Wilson, Michael Johnson and Mark Welles.

Congratulations to all who took part, endured the suffering and had fun. See you next year!

HK Indoor Rowing Champs (Day 2)

• Men 40–49 years old – 2000m

◦ G old, Jonathan Witts

◦ Silver, Rowan Cook

• Men 55–59 years old – 2000m

◦ G old, Michael Johnson

• Men 60–64 years old – 2000m

◦ Silver, Mark Welles

• Men 70–74 years old – 2000m

◦ G old, Ian Brownlee

• Women 30–39 years old – 2000m

◦ G old, Anna Fisher

◦ Silver, Vivian Leung

◦ A nna + Vivian both broke the indoor record for their age group (HK local participant record)

• Men 30–39 years old lightweight – 2000m

◦ G old, Richard Wilson

• Men Sports Clubs / Societies Team Relay 4 x 500m

◦ 6th out of 11th groups

◦ Wan Ng, Mark Welles, Vincent Lo, Dan Chan

• Highlighted crews also won another medal for achieving 83% of the world record for their category (shown below)

Ahoy from the Boatyard

The yard had a very busy start to the year with the competing boats readying themselves for the Rolex China Sea Race. For most of these vessels it was the first time going offshore in many years. The Club requires boats racing offshore to pass a Category 1 inspection which involves the checking of safety equipment, hull structure, including rudders, and keels. This work is carried out by an authorised marine surveyor in conjunction with the Boatyard.

These inspections have highlighted a number of problems and one in particular are corroded rudder stocks, with the yard placing orders for four rudders in the space of two days back in January, and a total of fourteen rudders in the past twelve months. Given the number of rudders that we see with badly corroded stocks it is important to have them inspected when your boat comes out for antifouling as it would be a very unpleasant experience to be sailing along and have your rudder shear off at the waterline.

We also found a number of vessels with delaminated keel grids. This is generally caused through grounding your vessel but can also be due to poor construction methods or materials used during production. Bulkheads are another area that seem to get neglected and require inspection to ensure they are not delaminating or rotting. Rotten bulkheads are particularly common on older vessels and is prevalent in Hong Kong due to our high humidity and rain fall.

The Boatyard is often asked “is this bulkhead structural” and the answer is yes. All bulkheads fitted to a vessel be it fore and aft or athwart ships are structural to varying degrees and when they are all bonded to the hull, they are creating the complete vessel structure. If an area of the vessel structure is rotten or delaminated then it will allow the hull to twist and move, resulting in poor performance and added stresses to the hull.

If you are unsure of the condition of your vessel or are planning on heading offshore, then please call the Boatyard as we are always happy to assist.