Waka Ama Racing

Our club has a number of paddlers who compete in sprint and long distance race events as individuals or as part of race crews.

Sprint races are fast and furious, with paddlers going flat out for distances of 500m to 1000m. Sometimes tight turns need to be made on the race course as well – a manoeuvre which requires great skill.

Long distance races are generally around 10km to 30km and test paddlers’ stamina. There are also longer races, called “changeover” races, where a crew will change paddlers every 20 minutes or so. They’re also very challenging, as there’s a special knack to changing paddlers while the canoe is moving.

Every year our club holds a race regatta, Tuna e Hoe Ana (paddling with the eels), at Lake Rotoiti, in the Nelson Lakes National Park. This is a popular event and features a series of races from 1km, 5km & 10km. It is now a sanctioned race and you can see it on the Waka Ama NZ Race Calendar

To find out more about other race events in New Zealand check out the race calendar on www.wakaaama.co.nz

There are a few occasions, normally local races, where we have more crews requesting use of club waka than we can provide with our fleet of canoes.

For races where this is a possibility, we will publish a date for crews or individuals to register interest in using a club waka and after which they can pay their entry fees (either to the race organisers or through the club for sanctioned races). This gives you a chance to get organised & train and gives us a chance to assess the level of demand. If you prefer a specific waka you can request one (though there is no guarantee you will get it !)

There will then be a later published date where we will allocate waka to crews that have registered interest and paid. If we are oversubscribed and no arrangement can be made between crews, we will use the simple method of a coin toss to decide who gets waka. This does not preclude late entries, but it makes it less likely that you will be able to get a club waka. This process will be open and transparent and we hope you will bear with us as we refine it to make it as fair as possible.

Where we cannot satisfy the demand by club members for waka, the club will endeavour to access, hire and pay for other waka that might be available, at no additional cost to the crew.

We recognise that, for various reasons, crews sometimes contain non-club members. In those instances we will ask for a pro-rata payment to cover their portion of the hire. This may also apply to non-club members racing in club waka. At current hire rates this equates to $25 per paddler.

You can find a full description of the waka allocation policy here.