Crews Converge for Inaugural Midsumma Gay & Lesbian Festival Regatta

Meandering through the city center of Melbourne, the Yarra River provided the aquatic landscape for the inaugural Melbourne Argonauts Queer Rowing Club Midsumma Festival Regatta on Sunday 13 February 2005. Organized to coincide with the Midsumma Gay and Lesbian Festival, the event drew two hundred and eighty oarsmen and oarswomen from 14 Rowing Clubs in the Australian state of Victoria.

Crews converged along the banks of the Yarra as boats launched from the Alexandria Gardens adjacent to the Midsumma Festival. With a perfectly clear, sunny, 25 degree day, the races provided a wonderful show for the 50,000 strong crowd attending Carnival Day, the traditional closing of the Midsumma Festival.

The event lasted six and a half hours to accommodate 104 races. The Melbourne Argonauts, a gay and lesbian rowing club based out of the Lord Somers Powerhouse, featured well in their events, winning by healthy margins the Male Novice Eight, the Male Beginner Four and the Female Masters Four (in composite with the Alan Mitchell Club). The Argonauts came a close second to Richmond Rowing Club in the Female Open Eight, losing by approximately 10 centimetres in what was an exciting neck and neck struggle from start to finish.

The first, second and third place winners were treated with specially struck medallions imprinted with the Melbourne Argonaut logo and a black and purple fashioning of the seven-pointed star of Australia. Around the edges were the words Pride, Equality, Participation, and Community which are the guiding tenets of the club. Naturally, the purple ribbon medallions were the talk of the river bank and immediately became THE hotly contested item for every event.

Amongst the competitors was former world champion sculler and FISA Thomas Keller Award winner Peter Antonie. He raced with the Melbourne University Boat Club, who won the Male Open Eight event in a closely fought contest with their boatshed neighbours, the Banks Rowing Club.

Once their races were over, many of the competitors took the opportunity to mingle with the festival crowd in the gardens next to the course.

The Argonaut rowers will now turn their focus to the 2006 World Outgames in Montreal where approximately 30 of its members look forward to testing their skills against the global gay and lesbian rowing community.