In the past three months they’ve paddled far enough to reach Sydney Harbour and back but, for Port Macquarie’s female outrigger paddlers, this gruelling training schedule will ensure there are no regrets when they cross the Tasman for their international racing debut.
Ten women from the Port Macquarie Maroro Club are travelling to New Zealand this week to take on crews from throughout the Pacific region at the legendary Takapuna Cup.
Seasoned paddlers Fiona Baker, Kim Roberts, Karan Bland, Sue Blackmore, Karen Newman, Kerry Owens, Chayanne Harihi and Lyn Lovering are being joined by club newcomers Cheryl Pavey and Cathy Cavanagh in the club’s first ever team to contest an international women’s ‘changes’ race.
The format will require the girls to regularly change in and out of a moving six-seat canoe across a 42-kilometre ocean course, which is expected to take four hours to complete.
Port Macquarie outrigger coach Wes Byrnes is full of praise for the commitment, teamwork and camaraderie shown by the team in the lead-up to the race.
“These girls have just kept turning up for each other, paddling an average of 60 kilometres per week for the past 12 weeks,” Byrnes said. “There’s a huge buzz within this group and it’s infected the whole club, so we can’t wait to get over to Takapuna and race.”
Byrnes said his charges had been mixing technical and endurance training in preparation for the event.
“This crew surprised its rivals with a gold medal at Wollongong in the first race of the season and they’ve been training up to six days a week ever since, with a single focus on Takapuna,” he said.
“Our strength and fitness is great and our changes are slick, so we’ve got every reason to feel confident of putting in a really strong performance on behalf of the club.”
The crew leaves for New Zealand today, Thursday, February 21, with the race commencing at 10am New Zealand time the following Saturday.
