The Royal St. John’s Regatta has reached a new plateau, and is better known throughout the international rowing community than ever before.
If our rowing crews have aspirations to participate at a national or international levels, now is the time to rally support.
To achieve this, they’ll need to explore the fact that Outer Cove’s 9:13 4/5 record set in 1901 was rowed over a course 160 feet longer than today’s course.
So, we have two distinct eras during which the St. John’s Regatta was conducted over markedly different course lengths that are — pardon the pun — poles apart.
The record in the first era remains at 9:13 4/5, and the only way it can be broken is on a course that is 160 feet longer. Since that’s not possible, due to the demonstrated changes in the measurements of the lake, the Smith-Stockley crew led by Skipper Jim Ring established the new record over a different length course in 1981, setting the pace for all Regattas since.
An error in setting markers for the 1919 resumption of the Regatta after the First World War caused fluctuating course lengths and a need to deal with the issue. Before the Regatta of 1965, a prominent sports figure and sports historian, Gordon Duff, found a survey of the course completed in 1924. He brought it to then Telegram Sports Editor Bob Badcock, and the result was a front-page story: “Was the 9:13 4/5 possible?”
Badcock, already convinced by the records that the course had changed over the years, concluded incorrectly that the 1901 course was about 35 yards shorter than the modern-day course, based on differences shown between the 1924 and 1951 surveys.
Until then, no evidence confirmed the length of the course prior to 1919.
Newspapers between 1924 and 1949 referred to an official survey done in 1924 that showed the course length as 3,900 feet, plus 200 feet for turning the buoys.
My research led me to the city’s engineering department, but they had no such survey.
At the city archives, I reviewed all maps there with any connection to Quidi Vidi Lake, and found the 1924 survey. While it provided evidence of a diminished length of the lake, there was no specific measurement of the race course.
Aware that someone had challenged the course length, I conducted year-by-year research on each Regatta from 1901 onwards. I found the proclamation declaring specific course measurements in The Evening Telegram of July 31, 1909. It reads: “The Honourable J. Harvey, president of the Regatta Committee, gave out full information last night as regards the length of the course as follows:
The distance from stake to buoys — 4,100 feet.
Allowed for turning — 200 feet.
From buoys to stakes — 4,100 feet.
Total — 8,400 feet.”
I located that missing document in 1994. Before that, the Regatta Committee made efforts to provide a professional survey of the course. Since 1951, they initiated several official surveys of the lake.
That year, an official survey was carried out by the city’s engineering department which measured the course at 8,050 feet. When 200 feet is added for turning the buoys, the race course was 8,250 feet. In succeeding years it became apparent the rowing lanes were not uniform in length. The lanes from stake to buoy were, from lanes one to four, respectively: 4,028 feet, 4,022 feet, 4,019 feet and 4,017 feet.
This discrepancy brings into question the four dead heats on record.
In 1990, Don Johnson, then course captain, asked the Hawco, King and Byrne Surveying Company to measure the course and set all lanes at the same length. The end result was a course that differed 10 feet from the 1951 course. That survey measured the course from stake to buoy as 4,020 feet, for a total of 8,040 feet.
When the 200 feet for turning was added it determined that the full course was 8,240 feet — 160 feet shorter than it was in 1901.
During the first Regattas from the 1820s to 1860, no buoys were set up, but a boat stationed at the end of the pond marked the turning area and spectators were allowed on the lake to follow the races.
These details should interest regatta fans, particularly fans of the Royal St. John’s Regatta.
Jack Fitzgerald
St. John’s
