Storm hits Racice regatta course

At around 5:30 pm, a massive wind, rain and hail storm hit Racice. Winds were measured up to 30 metres per second. The International Rowing Federation, FISA advanced racing today by two hours which turned out to be the correct decision and so racing had finished before the storm hit.

The terrible news is that a rack of men’s coxed four boats was picked up by the wind, embroiled like a tumble weed until it was stopped by a nearby truck. The coxed fours were from Great Britain, Germany, Ukraine, Italy, New Zealand, France, and USA. A Croatian boat was also involved, but it might be able to be repaired, according to Rainer Empacher of the German Empacher boatbuilders. Italian boatbuilder, Filippi has already organised special transport to be made tomorrow for two coxed fours from Italy. The German team has kindly offered their spare coxed four for use. The Czech Rowing Federation and the German Rowing Federation will be looking for other coxed fours for the remaining teams.

On top of this, the fours rack rolled over the Polish women’s eight and the boat was deemed not repairable at the regatta. The Polish will bring another eight from Poland on Friday. The German women’s eight was also damaged but can be repaired in time for their next race. A few other boats were damaged and more will be known about the damage on Friday.

The consequences are a postponement of the men’s coxed fours race and the women’s eight repechages until Saturday. There will be a meeting of Team Managers and coaches of the men’s coxed fours on Friday morning at 8:30 am to make decisions about the rest of the regatta.