Aoraki Dragons brings you the Ice Breaker for 2024-25 season, at Kerrs Reach on the Avon River. It includes Straight line races, 500m first, and then 250m (two heats and then a final in each distance).

• Start for the 500m is on the first bend of the Avon River. 
• Start for 250m is near the Christ College shed/Arawa Canoe Club, by the Porritt Park stream. Finish is by the first pontoons in front of the Union Rowing Club.
• If time permits, we will add a 100m Backwards Race to the finish of the day.

The (Lytellton) tide is quite late (12:24pm) and we know that it hits Kerrs Reach about an hour later. Teams can arrive from 9 am, with race briefing at 9:45am and the first race starting at 10 am. Depending on entries, we expect the last Race to finish a little after 4:30pm. The Race Draw will be sent out about Wedensday or Thursday before racing.

We will use six Standard Boats, racing in 3 lanes (some finals, such as Womens Small Boat Finals may have 4 lanes). Teams can be 20-paddler or 10-paddler, but paddlers cannot mix between 20- and 10-paddler boats (i.e. no ‘waka jumping’). Please note, you can only register one boat per affiliated team.

All attendees need to be affiliated members of Aoraki Dragons to partake in this event - you can start encouraging NEW PADDLERS to register now! Registration - Aoraki Dragon Boat - revolutioniseSPORT

Paddlers from last season are not required to re-register but will need to be re-added to your team. Team managers have access to your team via RevSport. We need you to go through and add paddlers from the previous season to your team prior to this regatta.

If your team has a sweep who will be ‘double-rostered’ (i.e. will be sweeping for more than one team, or paddling in one, sweeping another), please let me know in your reply. We’ll try to accommodate this in the draw but can’t make any promises. If the draw shows a clash, or the same Sweep is scheduled to race in consecutive races, you’ll need to arrange for a substitute sweep to Stand in for them.

Register your team from the above link. Again, you can only register one boat per affiliated team.

Pack-IN/set-up assistance for the event will be provided by Waimak Attack and Waimak Vibes. We’d like assistance from all teams in the pack-up.

Please note that your team's Season Fees should be paid by the end of November. Our rule is "no payment (or an agreed plan for payment) = no racing" so this is the last 'free' event. See s19.5 of our Constitution: "Any member failing to pay the annual subscription ... shall not be entitled to participate in any Association activity until all the arrears are paid". Invoices have been sent to all teams for the subscriptions for the season, if you have not received this please email Aoraki Treasurer. 

Background: Kerrs Reach is tidal, to some degree, so we were looking at the best date for this event. Original plan was 3 November, but tides on 10th are better, except Rowing want to use it Sunday. If we have it Saturday, it makes it too hard for out of town teams, and the weekend of 17th is Show Week. Hence we decided to run it on Sunday 24 November. This is in the middle of exams, so it also means that the school rowers will be off the water.

See tides.niwa.co.nz and tidetime.org at 12:20 PM NZDT the tide at Lyttelton is 2.15 m