Hamilton: Day 2 – SHARONINABOAT

Hamilton Waterfest – July 5 2026

Today I drove off to Hamilton for the second day of the Hamilton Waterfest, as Sharon did not row on day one but went to support her teammates in the Aloha boat, and today Wahine was on the program. She stayed in Hamilton and I took care of the cats and came to join on Sunday. Sounds like a great plan to me!

I can therefore not report on the Saturday races, but I’ve heard Aloha improved on some of their personal bests but unfortunately could not secure metal. Maybe Wahine could today? Fingers crossed!

Wahine is Tribal’s all-women boat, and as such it doesn’t make many appearances as you need to fill an all-women boat with women – when all the other Tribal boats are mixed-gender (called ‘mixed’ as they have a maximum of 10 men; ‘open’ boats have no restrictions on the number of men). Captain Sharon however put her magic to work and signed up 20 women for this event, which caused such excitement they’re already talking about another Wahine race in Welland in August.

Today however, they were looking at 4 races, one of which is the grueling 2K. Thank goodness the heat of the last weeks had subsided a bit; it was comfortable with some fog and clouds and not too much wind. Excellent. Alkame usually puts on a solid event and this one was no different. Hamilton is growing on me, aside from the drive. As you can see in the pictures below, the races were hard-fought but no medals were won. However, qualifying for A Division for a 5th overall standing out of 18 teams, I’d say that was very succesfull!

The next event will be…the Montreal International Dragon Boat Challenge in 2 weeks. See you there!