Outer Cove, M5 were tops in the Time Trials
Both defending men’s and women’s champions looked very much the part in posting the fasting times in the 2017 Royal St. John’s Regatta time trials held on a wet and sometimes breezy Saturday at Quidi Vidi Lake in St. John’s.
Outer Cover, the 2016 men’s champions, rowed a time of nine minutes and 12.45 seconds, more than 26 seconds faster than any of the other nine senior men’s crews who took to the pond on Saturday.
Meanwhile, M5 bettered 48 other senior ladies crews by more than 18 seconds, with a clocking of 5:22.55.
Of the 95 crews on the time trial schedule, more than threequarters of them were female.
The aim of the trials is to have teams with comparable times grouped together for individual Regatta races, making for more even competition. Teams are slotted for Regatta Day races within their gender/age-groups based upon times they row in today’s heats. The crew with the fastest time in its time-trial division gets to select the boat and stake of its choice for the Regatta, with the process continuing with the crew owning the second-fastest time, and so on.
That shell draw is scheduled for 7 p.m. Tuesday at the Boathouse museum.
Chris Neary, the captain of the course, will take all of the times from the trials and use them to create the master schedule for the 199th Royal St. John’s Regatta, set for Wednesday, Aug. 2.