High Point, NC – Over 500 rowers and thousands of supporters ascended on Oak Hollow Lake’s Festival park on Saturday for the 2018 High Point Autumn Rowing Festival.
Rowers competed in a number of classes including collegiate, youth, and adult (Masters) categories on a winding 5,000 meter race course ‘Round the Duck’ on Oak Hollow Lake. In all 181 boats raced in a time trial format.
UNC Chapel Hill dominated the men’s collegiate blue ribbon eights event in a time of 15 minutes 31 seconds and almost two minutes faster than High Point University and NC State.
NC State won the women’s collegiate eights race in a time of 20 minutes 15 seconds ahead of HPU with two Davidson College entries rounding out the field.
In youth racing, Raleigh’s Triangle Rowing Club showed early fall speed to win both the men’s and women’s eights races. Triangle also won the women’s youth coxed fours race while Eastern Tennessee won the men’s coxed fours race.
High Point rowers combined with Greensboro Crew to race as Triad United Rowing Association (TURA) to win both the men’s and women’s youth quad sculls, double sculls, and women’s open pairs events.
In the prestigious men’s Open Single Sculls race, Davidson College’s Samuel Lindsay narrowly beat out United States national team rower Jack Devlin of Potomac Boat Club. Shawn Stephenson of Raleigh Rowing Center rounded out the medals.
The High Point Autumn Rowing Festival has seen four years of continued growth and organizers say it is now at capacity due to the limitations of dock space. “We could not advertise the event in any way this year,” says race founder Gene Kininmonth, who also heads up High Point Rowing Club, the host organization for the event. “We didn’t even send out a reminder email to clubs. They just found our website and signed up.”
Kininmonth says that without additional dock space next year there will be a cap on entries. “You never want to turn anyone away from coming to High Point but we just cannot manage the flow of boats launching and returning to shore. With a floating dock we could triple the size of the regatta.”
