What a great day for W1 racing at Henley Lake in Masterton. Warm and sunny all day! Winds were reasonably strong for some of the events later in the day, especially the 250m dash, but with Henley Lake being a small lake, it did not affect paddling negatively. In fact, it was the first time ever that we were able to run a Midget W1 race (6-10 years old).

A big thank you to Wairarapa Waka Ama Canoe Club, based at Henley Lake, for hosting this event, and providing a significant number of volunteers to set up the lane system and help run the event on the day.

We also had a new and fully surveyed lane system in action (100% accurate), partly enabled by a funding contribution from the Trust House Foundation. A special thank you to Matt Archer for helping set up the race course on Friday.

Racing was extremely competitive in the many divisions. Full results for both days are available here, the results for the W1 events can be found here.

With 140 points, Porirua Canoe and Kayak Club took out the Club Excellence Award for the third year in a row. Congratulations, a great effort. Full club award results are available here.

For the James Hapeta Club Spirit Award (eg entries in on time, team managers organised, consistent use of uniforms, good attitude, ready to lend a hand, etc, etc), it ended up being a tight race between Porirua Canoe and Kayak Club and Wairarapa Waka Ama Canoe Club. Congratulations to this year’s winner Wairarapa Waka Ama Canoe Club, in recognition of their significant efforts to make this year’s W1 events at  Henley Lake a reality.

Photos and some videos from the event are available via the Hoe Tonga facebook site at https://www.facebook.com/Hoetonga/.

If you have any feedback on the event, please fill in our survey (takes only 5 minutes).

Thanks again to our supporters.