2020 Scout Guide Regatta

The annual March long-weekend Regatta tradition continued this year. We had fewer numbers and smaller-sized people this year, and so our patrol boat rowing teams weren’t quite as strong as they have been, but we managed a win in the under 13 500m and very credible placings in the other races.

On Saturday, Tahlia (one of our leaders) took a crew out for a sail, with some of the kids helming.

Being in the water wasn’t greeted with as much enthusiasm this year as in past years, with the weather dull and occasionally drizzly, but there were still a few Scouts game to build a raft and compete in the raft race

And there were the usual dinghy races, with “Bob” and “Griffin” doing their usual sterling work (these events are among the Scouts’ favourites, and the kids get quite handy quite quickly at manoeuvring due to the number of events that they can go in).

There were a couple of surprising breaks with tradition. The tide was the lowest I’ve ever seen at Snug, making the beach quite wide … although the associated overnight high tide meant that we had to clear the beach of kayaks at the end of each day.

The other break with tradition came about because of a change of caterers. This was the Scouts’ reaction when they learned that the evening meal would not involve the traditional cardboard chicken schnitzel. They were most put out!

The female leader/parent rowing crew — a combined team from Clarence and Blackmans Bay — repeated last year’s winning efforts and ended up with the big pink oar. The mixed leader/parent race — always a hotly contested affair — was one of the closest and hardest fought in recent memory; and although we didn’t place we put up an almighty challenge, especially considering we did a lot of the distance with only five oars (the sixth popped out, and I have a bruise on my back to testify to the fact that getting it back in while still rowing was difficult for the person concerned!).

Finally, here’s the traditional end-of-Regatta Troop shot.