The Otago championships were abandoned in December after one day of racing when blustery conditions made it too dangerous to continue racing at Lake Ruataniwha.
Two weeks ago, the Canterbury championships fell to a similar fate, and the weather again threatened to ruin the South Island championships at the weekend.
After 13 of the 150 races scheduled for Saturday had been held, the wind picked up and forced the championships to a standstill, and heats were rescheduled for Sunday, when the weather turned out to be better.
"No matter what website you looked at, [the weather] was always going to be bad," South Island Rowing secretary Karl Morgan said.
Rowers started earlier on the Sunday to accommodate for all their heats, but it still made for a long day as the final races finished up about 4.30pm.
It made for a big weekend for many clubs, including Nelson who only arrived home by bus at 4am yesterday.
"Everybody was very appreciative to get some rowing done."
Medals were awarded based on their fastest times from the heat and several Otago athletes were among some of the top performers.
Dunstan Arm made a clean sweep of the men’s premier single sculls: Angus Kenny won gold, followed by Jack Pearson and Marley King-Smith.
They teamed up with Henry Clatworthy to win the men’s premier coxless quad sculls.
Freddy Todhunter won the women’s senior single sculls for the Central Otago club and Elsie Talbot secured silver.
Jed McIntosh and Matthew King won the men’s senior coxless pairs oars.
Oamaru’s Kouper Lynch, Ned Newlands-Carter, Jakob Rohrbach, Louis Belt and Payton Dickson won the men’s novice coxed four.
Twizel will host the South Island secondary school championships starting on March 1, and the Maadi Cup later that month.
