1905

The Annual meeting of 1905 was held at Carlyon’s Hotel with the president Mr. M. Honan in the chair. In the previous seasons the club had been less successful than it would like in terms of regatta wins. The committee realised that to improve the club was in urgent need of a capable coach. To that end the committee approached Mr. B. Arnold and were successful in securing his services for this regatta season. The result of this was a considerable increase in the form of all crews and the club won two races for the year.

Racing for the year began with the Trial pairs for trophies presented by Mr. E. Shew and Mr. M. Newton. In a series of very interesting and indeed exciting races the trophies were won by Mr. A. W. Bennett and Mr. W. Bolt. Major A.W.Bennett had returned to racing this season after an 18 year retirement. It was considered remarkable in 1905 and remains a fairly remarkable effort even today when Masters rowing is so popular and many former rowers rediscover the joys of rowing!

The club had representatives in the Ballarat Rowing Association’s Novice Regatta in both the fours and the scull with both scoring second placings. The next regatta was the VRA Regatta in December where we were represented by a Maiden four who “due to an unfortunate accident to the boat” while the crew were leading, deprived them of victory.

The event of the year for the club was the annual  “home course” regatta at Ballarat on March 3^rd.The program of racing was extensive with every race for Maiden, Junior and Senior oarsmen in eights, fours, pairs and sculls held. Each race was well subscribed to and this year unlike the last the weather was perfect. The club also ‘broke the drought’ and scored their first win in three seasons here in the Maiden pairs. The winning crew was Albert Carroll and J. McPherson with B. Arnold cox and coach. The Maiden eight was leading their race when they clashed with Barwon and both crews were disqualified. The club also entered the Junior eights and Mr. N. Victor came second in the Maiden sculls. The final regatta was Barwon were the club raced in the Maiden eights and a Maiden pair with the pair of Carroll and McPherson making it a double win.