Golden opportunity
Royal Canadian Henley Regatta gets underway Tuesday with 2,298 athletes from 140 clubs
Peter Scott remembers laughing when his mother asked him in a text whether he will “be around” for his 54th birthday this Sunday.
As chairman of both the 135th Royal Canadian Henley Regatta and the Henley Masters Regatta, Scott didn’t have to consult the calendar on his cellphone before giving her an answer.
From 4:30 a.m. until 9:30 p.m. on race days, he doesn’t plan to be anywhere but Henley Island.
“I won’t even see my wife Susan until the 14th, Monday,” he said with a chuckle.
Scott won’t be spending much, if any, of that time scrambling to line up volunteers to fill in positions at the last minute.
Unlike some other regattas, which can go into qualifying heats still begging for helping hands, mustering an army of close to 400 volunteers to work the Henley requires almost almost no recruiting at all.
“A lot of people like to take the entire week off work for this,” Scott, the regatta’s chairman since 2014, said. “It’s like a second job for them, they come back every year, it’s like a reunion.”
He described the Royal Canadian Henley Regatta as “the Super Bowl of rowing ” when it comes to filling volunteer positions.
“It’s not difficult to find volunteers for this specific regatta,” Scott said. “The entire atmosphere of having 3,000-plus athletes on the island at any given time is just electric.
“Everyone wants to be a part of this, there are just so many neat things going on down there.”
And what brings the volunteers, more than half of whom are former rowers, back year after year is love for the sport and the desire to give back to the community.
“We just give our volunteers a bag lunch and a T-shirt, so they’re not in it for the swag,” said Scott, a Governor Simcoe Secondary School graduate who went to compete for St. Catharines Rowing Club and made the junior national team at age 16.
“They’re in it just to help out the community and the kids.”
A total of 2,298 athletes – 1,132, female; 1,116, male – are competing at an event that gets underway Tuesday and wraps up Sunday, Aug. 13.
That’s down from the 2,381 who competed at the Royal Canadian Henley Regatta last year, but Scott said rowing events across the board are experiencing similar decreases.
“It all has to do with demographics,” he said. “There are fewer kids, they’re closing schools and that kind of stuff.”
Opening ceremonies take place Monday from 7 to 9:30 p.m. at the grandstand and, thanks to an Ontario150 grant, opening night will feature an “incredible fireworks show.”
“We’re using some of that 150 Celebrate Ontario Grant to to put more bang in the sky.”
Grant money also was used for street-pole banners “to add a little colour to Port Dalhousie.”
While the Henley started in 1880 as the inaugural championship for the newly launched Canadian Amateur Rowing Association, its scope has since broadened past national boundaries. Many of the 140 clubs competing this year are from the U.S. and crews from Argentina, Australia, Brazil, China, Great Britian, Mexico, Monaco and Zimbabwe are also visiting St. Catharines prospecting for Henley gold.
And only Henley gold. Unlike the RowOntario Championship that took place last weekend along the Great Dain course in Welland or the Canadian Secondary Schools Rowing Association Regatta, the second-biggest rowing event on Martindale Pond each year, only first-place finishers are awarded medals at the Henley.
Scott said the toughest aspect of chairing the Henley is the “heartbreak” that goes with telling young rowers they can’t compete.
“It’s a championship regatta and we have very strict rules,” he said. “It just breaks my heart when we have to be consistent in the rules and if coaches and administrators make mistakes and, as a result, the kids don’t have a race that they’ve been training for.
“That, to me, is the toughest thing to do.”
Thankfully, that hasn’t happened all that often.
“It doesn’t happen a lot, but if happens once, it happens too many times.”
“Every kid should have the chance to race Henley.”
Events at the popular competitions can be oversubscribed. For example, entries for under-19 men’s double are capped at 77, but there are “19 to 20 boats” on the wait list.
“That’s 40 kids who aren’t racing in that event, that’s tough for me.”
While “race week” won’t officially start until Tuesday, the Henley Masters Regatta is on tap for tomorrow. Action in the oneday competition gets underway, weather permitting, at 8 a.m. with the final race set to leave the start line at 4:18 p.m.
We just give our volunteers a bag lunch and a T-shirt, so they’re not in it for the swag.” Royal Canadian Henley Regatta chairman Peter Scott