Black Swans rowing crew from WA set sights on Head of The Charles Regatta in Boston

ABC NEWS (Australia)

The Black Swans are former high-level rowers who started the WA group for fitness and connection.  Now they are in America to compete in the world's biggest rowing race — The Head of The Charles Regatta.

Transcript

00:00Push back. Push back.

00:05Putting the finishing touches on years of hard work.

00:08Ten seconds remaining Black Swans. Push back now.

00:11The crew from Perth, the Black Swans, are about to compete in the most famous rowing race in the world.

00:17It's a bucket list event for a group boasting three Olympic medalists,

00:21several national and international level rowers and an elite musician.

00:25We've done the Head of the Yarra in Melbourne a couple of times

00:28and we've raced in the state champs here several times.

00:32So that's been good.

00:34And then we thought we'd do this, the Head of the Charles,

00:37which is a really iconic international race.

00:40While on the cusp of the competition, they only started rowing together for fitness.

00:44For Stuart Reside, picking up an oar again after 15 years was a challenge.

00:49You look back at rowing through lots of fond memories

00:53and sort of rose-coloured glasses if you like,

00:56but you tend to forget the hard bits of it, you know.

01:00So when I was asked to sort of join in, I said,

01:02oh God, I don't know if I've kind of got it in me, you know.

01:05The race covers five kilometres of the Charles River, which separates Boston from Cambridge.

01:10It sees boats set off every 15 seconds,

01:13with faster crews forced to navigate past slower ones in pursuit of competitive times.

01:18It means Black Swan, Coxswain, Borbie Webster will have her work cut out.

01:22The more on it we are together, the faster we're going.

01:26Unlikely to crack under the pressure, Webster was in the band Bond and founded the Perth Symphony Orchestra.

01:32It's about delivering, working towards something, being able to deliver at that point in time,

01:37but also both music and rowing are synchronised.

01:41The regatta still holds a special place for this crew, who have already achieved so much.

01:46Many of the crew have competed at Olympics and World Championships and other major international regattas,

01:52but this one has a lot of meaning, heart and soul.

01:55It's kind of a rowers thing to win.

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