- Friday 10 September 2010
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Men and their boats
GRAHAM Keegan and Ian Aitken were amongst many enjoying the 27th Annual Great Waikato River Race over Easter Weekend.
TWO Northeast Taranaki men who love to tinker with Seagull outboards were in their element over Easter weekend, participating in the 27th Annual Great Waikato River Race.
Ian Aitken of Purangi and Graham Keegan of Waitara were among the scores of contestants who started the long weekend gathered at the base of the Karapiro Dam near Cambridge. On day one they headed to the Rangiriri Bridge before heading down to Hoods Landing near the mouth of the Waikato River on day two.
Ian won the modified 2½ horsepower section in a time of 7hrs31mins beating the old record by about 2 hours.
The modification to his Seagull outboard motor included a McCullough chainsaw carburettor and an air filter made out of a tea strainer from Pak ‘N’ Save. His only mishap was a broken prop spring, which was the result of running onto a sandbar in a very low running river.
He was stoked with the performance of his rubber ducky mounted on a sled made of Paulownia timber grown on his Purangi farm.
Graham won the dingy section with a time of 7hr26mins with a 4½ horsepower silver century Seagull outboard powering his fold-up Portaboat. Graham bettered the old record by just three minutes.
Both men’s time would have been considerably shorter.
This year’s river race was something of an international event with some competitors coming from England, Bermuda and France, and there were plenty of stories, friendly rivalry and post mortems among the boat and support crews at the Waiuku Cosmopolitan Club on Sunday night at the dinner and prize-giving.
By all accounts, the River Race was another very successful and friendly event.
For boaties like Graham and Ian, the Waikato event is something of a highlight in the yearly water sports calendar and they encourage people to get involved with such fun events.
Other notable events include a long run from the head of Lake Wanaka to the mouth of the Clutha River, the ‘Poker Run’ on Lake Rotorua, the Foxton Regatta and the Waitara River races in November.
