Tyne Signs On

It’s official - this summer’s re-enactment of Renforth’s most famous sporting event will have a true international flavour.

By: Bobbi-Jean MacKinnon

Times Globe staff writer

The British are coming.

A rowing crew of about five and a team manager from England will travel to Renforth in August to take part in this year’s regatta, dubbed "Regatta 125" in honour of the 125^th anniversary of the Great Boat Race.

"We’re renewing an old friendship and it’s nice to have that relationship," Ian Boyd, captain of the Tyne Rowing Club, said yesterday during a telephone interview from England.

The crew, based in Newcastle-Upon-Tyne, will participate in a re-enactment of the 1871 race which saw a lighthouse keeper and three fishermen from Saint John beat a championship team from Mr. Boyd’s hometown.

"It sounds fantastic - It sounds like a very worthwhile celebration," said Mr. Boyd, adding he regrets he himself will not be able to attend.

Mr. Boyd has been rowing since the 1960s and describes himself as part of the "veteran category." He plans to send a young crew. "I think they’ll see it as a true race and hopefully both sides will treat it as such."

When asked whether being able to row year-round because of England’s ice-free rivers might give his club members an edge, he replied, "I don’t know. It doesn’t seem to do us any better at international competitions. There guys are pretty fit wherever they go."

No decisions have been made about who will represent the Tyne Rowing Club, which is nearly 150 years old. But with about 100 members, Mr. Boyd thinks it will be "quite easy" to find members willing to go-especially with financial support.

"It’s a young man’s sport and most of them don’t have a lot of spare money to take holidays, really," he explained.

Renforth has offered to pay all of the British crew’s expenses, according to Greg Zed, chairman of this year’s regatta and the former Renforth mayor.

Although no travel arrangements have been set yet, Mr. Boyd jokingly pointed out the crew won’t be traveling in their own boats. "They’re flimsy to cross the Atlantic," he said.

The visiting crew will rely on supplies provided by the local club to help cut costs. And members will be billeted with local families to save money on accommodations.

"They’ll get a real taste of what life is like there and what people are really like as opposed to being remote in a little area" such as a hotel, said Mr. Boyd. The crewmembers will probably stay about a week to get in some sightseeing and make some friends while they’re here, he said.

Mr. Zed is "ecstatic" about the news. He contacted the Tyne Rowing Club late last year and after several telephone conversations and letters, has been anxiously waiting for a reply.

"It’s the best news we could have received," said Mr. Zed. He expects the week-long program will attract 10,000 participants to the quiet riverside village.

Other planned events include baseball, tennis, and golf tournaments, the area’s biggest-ever sailpast, a pancake breakfast and beer gardens.

A 20-foot-long bronze sculpture of the Saint John crew’s racing shell, installed on two large racing shell, installed on two large carved pink granite rocks next to the Kennebecasis River between Renforth and East Riverside-Kingshurst, is also expected to be unveiled as part of the celebrations. It will be visible from the river, rail and road.

While the regatta will undoubtedly be the largest event hosted in the Kennebecasis Valley in more than 100 years, Mr. Zed said the anticipated crowd of 10,000 would have been dwarfed by the throngs who lined the Kennebecasis shores 125 years ago.

As many as 25,000 spectators were reported to have lined the three-mile route to watch the match between Saint John’s famous Paris Crew and the four-man team from northern England which had beaten them the year before in their world-class match.

The Saint John team was known as the Paris Crew because it had taken the 1867 World Amateur Rowing Championship in Paris by storm, stunning the European press and its English and French competitors.

Saint John’s Robert Fulton, George Price, Samuel Hutton, and Elijah Ross, wearing their flesh-coloured jerseys, dark trousers, leather braces and pink caps, were considered strange-looking compared to their well-dressed upper-class rivals.

The Saint John team also used an orthodox rowing style. The team had no coxswain to shout instructions and steer the boat, preferring to steer with a foot-guided rudder. And its boat, described in English newspapers as a "curious old-fashioned rigger," outweighed the sleek, delicately crafted European boats by more than 100 pounds.

Still, the rowers proved themselves the undisputed world champion, winning the event with such ease that one of the crew members was able to stop rowing and wave as they crossed the finish line.

On Sept. 15, 1870, the Saint John team was matched against a championship British team from Newcastle-Upon-Tyne. The Paris crew lost when choppy water spilled over the low sides of their boat.

They were rematched against the same team on Aug. 23, 1971. The Paris Crew won the race, but was deprived of a satisfactory victory because the captain of the English crew died during the race.

James Renforth, 29, appeared to falter and pulled out of his stroke. The crew abandoned the race and rowed ashore for help, but it was too late. He died hours later.

Supporters suspected foul play and rumours spread that Mr. Renforth has been poisoned. They believed the opposition would stop at nothing to win a race. The cause of death was actually congestion of the lungs.

"It was the icing on the cake to get a crew from James Renforth’s home town," said Mr. Zed. The regatta’s host village is named after Mr. Renforth.

Artist Marlene Hilton-Moore is "excited" about her bronze boat sculpture being tied in with the celebrations. "The work is like pleasure," she said. "In a way it’s like a dream come true.

"I left here and now I’ve been able to come back to the place I grew up and bring back a vision of this place in a very visual form which will hopefully speak to the community," said Ms. Hilton-Moore, a part-time sculpture professor at Ontario’s Georgian College who spent her teen-age years in East Riverside.

She has already started a wooden pattern, designed directly from the original shell housed at the New Brunswick Museum, will have five center ribs exposed in cast iron. The bottom of the boat will face towards the river.

The sculpture’s granite rocks, which she selected this week from Evandale quarry, are about six feet tall and weigh about 13 tonnes each. Nelson Monuments will sandblast the rocks to her specifications.

She expects her sketched design will be complete by the end of June. Carvings will likely include wildlife sketches, crests of the local towns and villages, a map of the route the Great Boat Race and three yet-to-be-selected drawings done by students up to Grade 3 with the themes of school, home and play.

Individuals and companies who donate to the $60,000 project may also choose to have their names or logos engraved. One name costs $200, two names cost $400 and three names cost $500.

Irving Oil was the first corporate sponsor to come forward. "We didn’t hesitate for one moment. We just think it’s an excellent project - It’s a very significant event," said spokeswoman Colleen Mitchell. "I think it’s important to remember history and be involved in local communities so we’re very pleased to help make this sculpture a reality and to help Saint John remember some of the very significant accomplishments that it has had."

The company has allotted $1,500 to the project, but plans to go "above and beyond" that, said Ms. Mitchell, adding she doubts that the final amount will be made public.