A new way to launch

When the project was rst planned seven years ago the estimated cost was about $140,000, says Charlie. “ e project timing was unfortunate. “ e global pandemic held us up quite a bit and had a dramatic impact on cost.”

Home-grown hopes

Charlie says typical rowing pontoons are manufactured overseas. “We’ve just had an engineer join the club and he’s quite keen to see if he can construct the pontoon domestically.”

Charlie says the club is still fundraising and currently has $385,000 raised from di erent grants. “If we get enough funds we’ll be able to import something from overseas.

“If we don’t then we’re going to have to gure out how to do something more home-grown.”

Charlie says rowing pontoons are all over New Zealand but there isn’t enough to manufacture them in our country. “ e nearest [river pontoon] that we went to look at was out in Hauraki... they’ve made that themselves.”

Whether imported or home-grown, the club is aiming to kick o construction between August and February, after whitebait spawning season has nished. “We can’t disturb the riverbed during the whitebait spawning season so that ends in August and we’re trying to get all of our ducks in a row so we can do it later this year.

“Everyone’s pretty excited of the prospect of us pulling it o before Christmas – so ngers crossed!”

Georgia Minkhorst