Boat
Rightly or wrongly, 'The Boatie' has been acknowledged for some time as a 'special breed', At Glenelg we have continued a long tradition of boat rowing, with some colourful characters to match! Glenelg acquired its first 'modern day' surf boat when the club moved from Kent St. to our current location. After the rebuilding of the club the purchase of two boats during the late 1960's and early 1970's, Tower One and Tower Two, saw the building of a growing boat section. The club had a mixture of success with some young lads, including Mick Cotter, Leigh and Shane Bowbridge and David Copley among others. However, it was not until the 1980's that Boat crews started to make their impact felt at state level. Michael 'Bung' Victorsen (yes, he did try to go through the lock with a crew!), developed a hard, tough, unforgiving, (not to mention at times explosive!), approach to training and boat rowing within the junior ranks. The B-52's, (Glenn Bloor, Paul and Steve Kromer, Bernie Jucker's) took out the Junior State Championship in 1982, followed by the 454's, (Charlie Tidswell, Simon Phin, Scott Cattrall, John Messenger) in 1986. Both crews also representing the club at A Grade boat level while the club supported competitive A, B and C crew's.
However, it was not until the mid 1990's that Glenelg's Boat crew's truly came of age under the reforms of Charlie and Peter Tidswell and Michael Cotter. Charlie Tidswell swept the Glenelg Women's Crew to Silver at the 1997 Australian Championships at Kurrawa Beach. Amanda Cross, (now Tidswell), Gina Morris, Tash Cullen and Kristen McKenzie became Glenelg's first ever boat medallists at a National level, not to mention a string of successive State Championships and wins at the Freshwater carnival in Sydney. Peter Tidswell brought Glenelg's first Gold medal back to the club in 14 years in the male division with gold in the reserve class in 2000.
Current day boaties are considered to be elite sportsmen and women, with training sessions totalling some 7-10 sessions per week for the top crews down to a couple sessions for the more social crews. We currently field about eight crews in five divisions and at the end of last season we were ranked third overall. We have planned goals and training programs in place to place us up the top of the ladder over the next few years. We have four competitive surfboats being two Southcoast boats, one DKG and one Miles.
The impact of the Tidswell family in the boat section cannot be underestimated. Approaching four decades of involvement and commitment (1970's-2000's) the youngest brothers, Peter & Charlie, have guided much of the success of Glenelg's boat crews in recent years. Of course doing so with a keen respect of 'boatie' tradition at Glenelg. Greg Daw has taken on the reins as Boat Captain in 2006/2007 and will be working with the Tidswell brothers in developing the next generation of boat rowers to continue our quest of being the number one boat club not only in South Australia but the Country.
