St George Leagues Club A Crew row strongly in Ocean Thunder 1st Rd
Event one of the Schick Hydro Ocean Thunder Series has been run and won last Saturday (12/11/2011)in tiny surf conditions on Sydney's Dee Why Beach.
The 'St George Leagues Club' (Bulli) Ocean Thunder crew of Paul Jones (sweep), Dean Roberts, Heath Mercer, Ben Lowe, Dan Porra and Mitch Roberts rowed eight races to reach the Semi Final.
The competition was hot, with Australia's best surf rowing crews battling out for big prize money in front of a smallish crowd kept away by the overcast conditions and small surf.
During the morning preliminary rounds of the Men's series, Southern Fasteners (North Cronulla) and reigning Australian and Ocean Thunder champions Dial Before You Dig (Mona Vale) were dominant, both winning an incredible five of their six races with only a second placing ruining two potential perfect mornings.
Culligan Water (Bilgola), Australian Cable Tray Systems (Manly), Reilly and Sons Foods Services/Mammoth (Bungan), St George Leagues Club (Bulli), Starrett (Batemans Bay), Stockland (Currumbin), Westrac (North Cottesloe) and Bisley Workwear (South Maroubra) rounded out the mornings top ten.
Our guys were very consistant all day with 5 x 1st places, 2 x 2nd places and 2 x 3rd places. There were two semi finals consisting of six crews in one semi and five crews in the other with two crews to go through to the final. Our guys were in the semi of six crews but were just pipped by a finger nail finishing third and just missing out on the final.
But overall a very impressive performance on the day by our crew certainly had the beach talking.
Northcliffe knocked us out…good work from lane 1 to our lane 4…no lovin on the way home in that lane especially in a flat surf and NE wind. With a wave on it’s probably the lane to have. The final finished in lane order and in almost perfect single file . Lane 1 = Bilgola, Lane 2 = Mona Vale, Lane 3 = Lorne, Lane 4 (closest to the rocks at Dee Why) = Northcliffe.
The crew sit in equal 5th position in the point-score with another 3 rounds to contest.