He arrived at the start line without the required country and World Rowing stickers on his boat.
He was given a yellow card, and the required stickers which he hastily put on his boat.
Worse was to come because the stickers were not put above the water line and a plume of water rose up as he started the race.
It was at this stage that Drysdale used his experience, put up his hand, and the race was stopped.
Drysdale (31) has been around the international scene for a long time and knew what to do in an emergency.
"The first 100m is the zone when the race can be stopped for a breakage," Drysdale said.
"I indicated a technical problem by putting up my hand."
After checking the equipment, the international umpire at the start took the decision to restart the race with all crews.
No objection was made by any of the other competitors at the end of the race.
"It's never happened to me before and I hope it never happens again," Drysdale said.
He admitted responsibility for not having the stickers properly placed on his boat. He has two boats and the stickers were on the other one.
Drysdale appeared to take the incident in his stride but inwardly it was not like that.
"It was the most stressed I have ever been going into a race," he said.
"It is not something I'd like to repeat."
Drysdale used all his experience when the race was restarted and led from the 500m.
He had a 1sec lead over Ondrej Synek (Czech Republic) at halfway but the gap had been reduced slightly at 1500m.
Synek dropped out of contention in the last 400m and finished 2.34sec behind the world champion. Drysdale was timed at 7min 12.74sec and Synek at 7min 15.08sec.
A back injury prevented Drysdale from having his usual international races in the World Cup this year.
He used the heat and semifinal as speed work.
"This is my first hitout and it is good for me going into the final," he said.
But he is not being complacent about tomorrow's final.
He is wary of Olaf Tufte (Norway), who had a marginally faster time than Drysdale in the other semifinal.
There is also the need to be wary of Alan Campbell (Great Britain), who won the other heat in 7min 10.07sec.
The other New Zealand highlight came in the men's eight when the novice crew of Adam Tripp, Tyson Williams, Ian Seymour, Tobias Wehr-Candler, Michael Arms, Sean O'Neill, Chris Harris, Ben Hammond and cox Ivan Pavich finished a narrow second to qualify for the final.
The semifinal was won by the United States in 5min 38.48sec, from New Zealand (5min 39.08sec), with Olympic champion Canada third in 5min 42.58sec.
Only two crews from the repechage advanced to the final and Canada, which had led to the 1500m mark, missed out.
"We were three-quarters of a length down to Canada at halfway but the crew did not panic because the race is over 2000m." an ecstatic coach, Dave Thompson, said.
The crew has been together for only 10 weeks and now has the longer-term prospect of competing at the London Olympics in 2012.
The eight finished only a second behind the world champion German crew in the heat. The time of 5min 25.40sec was the fastest rowed by a New Zealand eight.
The fastest time before this was 5min 31sec rowed by Rusty Robertson's crew at Copenhagen in 1971.
The Mike Stanley-stroked eight won the gold medal at the world championships at Duisburg in 1983 with a time of 5min 33sec.
Emma Twigg also qualified for the final of the women's single sculls when finishing third in 8min 15.64sec behind Ekaterina Karsten (Belarus), 8min 06.95sec, and Mirka Knapkova (Czech Republic), 8min 09.51sec.
The women's eight finished third in its repechage in 6min 11.81sec and failed to advance to the final.
New Zealand won its first medal at the championships when Daniel McBride finished third in the adaptive single sculls final in 5min 33.39sec, behind Tom Aggar (Great Britain) 5min 19.36sec and Andrii Kryvchun (Ukraine) 5min 32.67sec.
CREW OF THE DAY
The New Zealand men's eight
Adam Tripp, Tyson Williams, Ian Seymour, Tobias Wehr-Candler, Michael Arms, Sean O'Neill, Chris Harris, Ben Hammond and cox Ivan Pavich finished second and qualified for the final of the eights on Sunday.
NZ crews in A finals today
• 2.48pm, lightweight men's pair.
• 3.03pm, women's four.
• 3.18pm, lightweight women's double sculls.
• 3pm, lightweight men's double sculls.
• 3.48pm, mens coxless four.
• 4.03pm, womens quadruple sculls.
