Ian Jobling
The inaugural Australian championships for Coastal Rowing, hosted by Rowing Australia and Rowing Queensland, start today at Noosa Beach-West and end on Sunday.
Secretary of the Coastal Rowing Noosa, Peter Watson stated: “until now and without state and national competitions being available, Coastal Rowing Noosa has focussed on recreational and tour rowing with adult male and female rowers. With the advent of competition, we have reset our focus. We have set ourselves to attract a younger demographic for local and elite competition.”
And elite competition is highly likely very soon because Coastal Rowing will be an event at the 2026 Youth Olympic Games in Dakar in Senegal. World Rowing President, Jean-Christophe Rolland, has written to Rowing Australia stating: ‘’the beach sprints format is at the heart of our Olympic strategy to have coastal rowing included as a new discipline on the Olympic program for LA 2028 and Brisbane 2032.”
The Beach Sprint discipline is being proposed by World Rowing for inclusion in the 2028 Los Angeles Olympic Games, and this is the first national championship to be held in Australia for the discipline.
Sculls, Pairs and Quads races will be organised by Rowing Australia with operational assistance from Rowing Queensland and Noosa’s local Coastal Rowing Club.
Coastal rowing boats are broader than traditional rowing shells. The Beach Sprint races involve a head-to-head beach sprint of two crews over approximately 10-15 metres followed by a 250-metre slalom-course race to a buoy, a return leg of the same distance, and then a final sprint to the finish line. This, of course, means that the rowers must turn their crafts 180-degrees to return to the shoreline.
The endurance format of the discipline also involves Solos, Doubles, and Coxed Quads over a distance of 4000 metres, which for Noosa would be from Main Beach to approximately 1st Point and return.
“We are attracting membership from the wider rowing community with a number of new members maintaining joint membership with us and their flat water rowing clubs,” Mr Watson said.
Coastal Rowing Noosa, with the support of Rowing Queensland, envisage the establishment of a centre for the development of a high-performance program to develop rowers for international competition.
Noosa Main Beach is an ideal location for Coastal Rowing because it is north facing and is protected from the prevailing south-easterly winds, thereby providing excellent swells to test the skills of the rowers.
In my role as Honorary Director of the Centre of Olympic and Paralympic Studies at the University of Queensland, it seems that Noosa is well-placed to host the Coastal Rowing and Beach Sprint events at the 2032 Brisbane Olympics Games.
Events commence on Thursday and Friday at 10am and 8am on Saturday and Sunday. The complete schedule may be viewed at:
rowingaustralia.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/2022-ACRBSC-Schedule.pdf
This is an opportunity to see a very different form of rowing from the comfort of your beach-chairs and wandering sand. Readers may be keen to view aspects of this exciting rowing activity by opening this link:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=udOirAdP1-M [You can skip the ads!]
Further information about Coastal Rowing Noosa is on their website:
www.coastalrowingnoosa.com/home/
(Dr Ian Jobling is Honorary Director of the University of Queensland Centre of Olympic and Paralympic Studies.)
