Mercantile again had fun at the 2023 New Years Day Anglesea Recreation and Sports Club regatta winning the men's masters pairs and fours.

This is a historic regatta is raced in 1904 fixed seat gigs built by James Edwards & Sons of Melbourne. Perhaps these are the last boats built of this type and they are fully restored and working well. It is a regatta that all rowers should race at once. Whilst the men's events have been won numerous times by Mercs members, not so the women's events. We will need to encourage our women members to also embrace this iconic event.

Richard Wraith and Tony Inglis successfully defended Mercantile’s dominance of the men's masters coxed pair (won the previous year by Richard Moreton and James Shipton) and then Wraith and Inglis combined with Moreton and Shipton to win the men's masters IV. (Or in Anglesea Recreation and Sports Club terms, 100+ years for the pair and 200+ years for the four.)

Richard Wraith, cox James Moreton and Tony Inglis are presented with the winning trophy for the Men's Pairs.

James Shipton, William Moreton, Richard Moreton, Tony Inglis and Richard Wraith

The four in action complete with Panama hats

James Shipton reports that the Mercs crews were also considered the best dressed on the day, sporting Panama hats on and off the water and a Mercs’ blazer being worn by the coxswains (William and James Moreton, sons of former Mercs lightie David Moreton) in the style of 1920s Oxbridge bumps.