Victorian Championships Update # 3

Published Sat 01 Mar 2025

We are in the process of moving the Victorian Championships to Edgewater Lake on 22/23 March 2025.

After this week’s Blue Green Algae test (levels still above acceptable trigger levels) at the National Water Sports Centre in Carrum, it became apparent we would not know the possibility of holding the championships there until 12th March at the earliest. Therefore, we investigated alternative venues with stakeholders and partners and sought the views of Club Presidents to inform us in our decision making.

There were three clear themes:

Go with a familiar venue;
Minimise geographic relocation and changes to team logistics; and
Travel and parking,

Our Clubs weighted these themes differently and that’s a good thing, people have different context, that leads them to different priorities.

We looked at many locations, Nagambie and Ballarat were already booked. Approval for the Maribyrnong would not be given on the Saturday. There would be operational challenges in setting up Gateway Lakes in the timeframe, Albert Park was the week after the Grand Prix and booked on the Saturday, the waterway manager for Lysterfield lake was in the process of resigning from the role as they had no staff to manage or approve usage or exemptions for the waterway. Other venues were physically unsuitable.

Considering all this, Edgewater Lake is the most suitable venue to hold the Championship on the scheduled dates.

We have had a great deal of support from Parks Victoria, Safe Transport Victoria and the City of Maribyrnong helping us to get the event to happen on our preferred dates and we are designing the event within the borders of what is possible for them to approve.

We will be able to execute a full race schedule at Edgewater Lake. The 200m racing will be standard, the 2km race will be achieved with an extra turn and the 500m will be reduced to approximately 400m.

In the early stages of planning we can let you know:

The location has very good existing food and coffee outlets and there is an Aldi quite close by.
Team Marquees are planned for Harbor Park and there is adequate drop and go access to it from Bracken Ave.
Some parking is available in the surrounding residential precinct as well as at the Footscray Boat Club / Victoria University car park which is the same distance as the Woollies car park to the Docklands hub. There is also the western Flemington Race Course car park across the river.
Direct Public Transport is limited, 15-20 minutes from Ascot Vale or Footscray Station, and walking from the stations is another 15 mins compared to Southern Cross to the Hub.
There are two different pontoon structures which we will use to load boats and we are collaborating to see how their capacity can be increased.
Noise amenity will need to be carefully managed as we are in a residential area. Radios, in conjunction with WhatsApp used at LNY, will be utlised.

The work continues on the re-planning and optimising the opportunities. Recreational exercise in the precinct is high, so we will need to take care with our utilisation while seeking to exploit the exposure to fitness oriented people and determining how we can create a curiosity towards Dragon Boating.

It’s clearly not a purpose-built Dragon Boat competition facility, but in the situation we find ourselves in, it is the best available and we’ll all work together to make the best of it. That’s what we do.

Here is some of the draft planning details we are working on.