THE SPORT OF ROWING encourage them to a higher perfor- mance.”5468 New Zealand After Craies The lack of success in Tokyo for Eric Craies’ composite 1964 Eight ended for a time the efforts to put together a true National Eight in New Zealand. Into that vacuum stepped Rolf Porter. Alex Clark: “Mr. Rolf Porter started rowing at the Auckland Rowing Club around the late ‘20s, I think, and I believe he got a red coat in the coxed-fours in 1933. From there on, he was a competitor right through the war. I don’t think he was in the war because he wasn’t robust enough for some reason or other. Through all this time he stayed with the Auckland Rowing Club. He was a qualified accountant and ran a very successful business in Auckland. “After the war, he got an Auckland R.C. eight together. He didn’t row himself, but he coached it. They won the champion eights in 1946, and then after that I think he may have been out of rowing for a bit, and then I believe he came back in and coached King’s College, a very prominent secondary school in Auckland, and from what Alistair Dryden was telling me, he coached them for seventeen years. Alistair said they won the Maadi Cup three times, which is a pretty prestigious thing to win. “In 1963, Jack Stevenson, who was another wealthy businessman, coached an excellent Auckland R.C. Coxed-Four [including Alistair Dryden 6’5” 196cm 209lb. 95kg, Darien Boswell 6’3” 191cm 183lb. 83kg, Peter Masfen 6’2” 189cm 194lb. 88kg,5469 Dudley Storey 5’10” 179cm 185lb. 84kg and coxswain Robert Page. Dryden and Boswell had rowed in the 1962 Commonwealth Silver Medal Eight for 5468 Little, letter to the Craies family, December, 2007 5469 Masfen later became Porter’s son-in-law. Eric Craies but did not participate in the selection of the 1964 Eight]. This four would win the NZ championship four times in a row starting in 1963. They also came in eighth in the 1964 Olympics in Tokyo. 1965-66 “In about 1965, Rolf Porter came back down to the Auckland Rowing Club, and the club found they had enough oarsmen to put another eight on the water. This had always been Rolf’s ambition. Between Stevenson and Porter, they coached it, and they won the New Zealand Championship in both the coxed-fours and the eights in the 1965-66 season. “If you could do the double, you had a pretty good club! 1966 Clark: “After that, Rolf had a dream, and the dream was to take a New Zealand crew to Yugoslavia six months later [the World Championships in Bled in September, 1966]. He made the comment that every year he had taken his family overseas on a holiday trip, but this time he was going to spend his money on rowing! “The team’s trip was all paid by Rolf out of his own pocket, and in those days it cost £5505470 per rower. There were ten of us, including the coxswain and the reserve, along with Rolf and the manager.”5471 If Porter provided the funding, it was Fred Strachan who spearheaded the selection process. Otago Daily Times: “Strachan became a national selector after the poor performances of the New Zealand crews at the Tokyo 5470 Until 1967, New Zealand currency was the New Zealand pound, roughly equivalent to the British pound. 5471 Clark, personal conversation, 2009 1512
