The Golden Royal Rowing years from 1987-1990……….reminiscences

A Naval fighter pilot operating from a US Aircraft Carrier once wrote………….“The anxiety, thrill, and excitement I feel when steering this powerful machine onto a landing strip extending only a few hundred yards, can only be compared with the feeling I use to get during the explosive start of a rowing race.”

7 years of swimming in an unheated, heavily chlorinated pool (you can tell that the living in the US has softened me up!) and, getting up at 5.30 in the morning five days a week for practice, listening to Wilson’s (swimming coach) brusque orders every morning, I had, had it!  I finally mustered the courage to tell my parents, who for some reason thought I enjoyed all this and believed swimming was good for me being an asthmatic and all, and said, “enough is enough”.  I was finally done with swimming and was desperately seeking out a new sport in which to shine and put my lanky 5 foot 10 inch frame to good use.  I had tried my hand (or foot) at basketball, tennis, and soccer but soon realized that these were not the sports for me.  Then, one morning a bunch of fellows, who identified themselves as members of the Royal College Rowing Team, came by our classroom and asked if anyone was interested in rowing.  As it turns out, some of these chaps had been swimmers themselves at sometime and had quit, for one reason or the other, and joined rowing.  “Rowing?” I asked curiously, “but where?”  I had heard of the sports existence at Royal, and every year around November remember seeing a few blurbs about it in some of the Newspapers, but knew not much else.   Now, rowing was probably the only sport at that time where practice was held off-campus, so to speak, at the Colombo Rowing Club on the Beira Lake.  That in itself was an attraction.  The Regal cinema was right opposite the Rowing Club and Elephant House was around the corner as well.  This seemed like a great place to ‘hang out’ two to three days a week.  So, my good friends, Rasika Wickramasinghe, Druvi Candappa and I decided to give it a shot!

Interestingly, rowing is one of the few sports at college that is almost completely controlled by the more experienced senior oarsmen.  There is minimal involvement from the master-in-charge, no interference by coaches, and most importantly, no parental influence as the Colombo Rowing Club is not really conducive for parents to ‘hang-out’ and watch practice.  Rowing workouts, boat line-ups, coaching, and team rosters were almost entirely handled by the more-experienced senior oarsmen.  It was quite apparent from the very beginning that the ‘rowers’ were a very tight-knit and close group of fellows.  The senior oarsmen were an easy-going and fun-loving bunch in school, but at practice it was all ‘no-nonsense’ training, friendships apart.  Training was intense and demanded discipline, commitment, physical toughness, and mental resilience.  Rowing can be described as the ultimate team sport.  In essence, it is required that all rowers in the boat row with equal power and strength and function in total unison.  There is an old adage in the rowing world that “a boat is as good as its weakest rower.”  To make it into the Royal rowing team for the Annual Royal-Thomian Regatta competition was fierce, and we learned quickly that there were no short cuts.  Speaking of short cuts, I recall that during one of our 5-mile training runs to Galle Face green, Candappa jumping into a passing bus on Galle road and meeting us back at the Rowing Club.  Needless to say, he dropped out of training shortly thereafter.  Rasika Wicks and I stuck it through and trained as a pair working hard to make the team for the Royal-Thomian Regatta in 1987 and were selected to row B-fours along with Chanaka Wickramasuriya  and Malik Wickramanayake, coxed by Ruwan Welikala. 

Royal-Thomian regatta training, which begins about 2-3 months prior to the regatta, has to be among some of the most grueling training sessions of any sport that I know.  In addition to the usual three times-a-week 3-hour training sessions, two morning sessions from 5.30 to 7.30 were added as well.  Also, land circuit training was three mornings a week and weight training was three evenings a week.  In other words, we trained twice-a-day, six days a week for three months straight.  Notwithstanding that, we were also studying for our ‘A’ Level exams as well.   All this intense training seemed a little ‘extreme’ at first, but we soon learned that in order to get the edge over the competitors, we simply had to be better, stronger and faster.  If you missed a session, you had better be lying ‘deathly–ill’ in your bed at home because you could be sure that someone from the team would show up at your home to check!  Being rookies that year, we were clearly the underdogs for the B-fours race.   However, months of hard work and race preparation paid off as we charged ahead much to the chagrin of the ‘stunned’ Thomians to win the B-fours event easily.  That year the overall Trophy came down to the final event, the prestigious “boat race” featuring seasoned veterans Nalin Samarawickrama (captain), Ramli Gaffoor (86’ captain), Varuna Gunawardene and Prasanna De Mel, coxed by PJ Fernando.  The Thomian four proved to be no match to these four guys who pulled off a comfortable win in their race and Royal clinched the Trophy with a 28-12 victory.

The Royal Rowing season of 1988 under captain Varuna Gunawardene proved to be one of the best seasons in history.  At the National Rowing Championships, Royal swept the board winning almost every event.  That year Rasika and I were faced racing the indomitable Thomian pair of Gray & Vithanage, who had won all the pair races the previous year.  We rowed that race at a 36 rating for the entire 1000 yards in the Taos pair boat also commonly referred to as the ”bakkiya” for its sheer weight and size (it is safe to say that this boat was quite “behind its times” in terms of boat technology!).  The race took its toll on Rasika who collapsed after the race and had to be “air-lifted” from the boat (ok, a couple of big chaps carried him out!).  In the absence of ‘on-site’ EMT services or medical personal, we called in own.  I gave an S.O.S call to my father, a physician, for emergency help when he responded promptly, though his presence was not previously discouraged.  We had the fours final race coming up in just a couple of hours and did not have a suitable replacement.  So my father came to the rescue with his magic portion of glucose powder, salt and limejuice mixed into iced water.  After a few pints of the “make-shift Gatorade” and a lot of encouragement from the rest of us, Rasika was revived and we went on to win intermediate fours event by “half a canvas”, probably my closest race ever.  That year we also went on to “clean house” at the 1988 Royal-Thomian regatta with a 36-4 victory, but not without incident.  The A-four crew was almost the same as the previous year except for Ramli, who was not eligible that year, was replaced with Tariq Hassen.  This 6 foot 200 pound “ox” of a fellow somehow managed to break his oar in two (a rare and sometimes “disturbing” accomplishment that usually requires tremendous pulling power) at the final 200meters of the race, and with just three guys pulling the crew was still un-stoppable and could not be caught by the Thomians.

Three times proved not to be a charm, as I captained the team in 1989 during my final year at college.  Most of our seasoned veterans had left and we were training a new crop of budding young oarsmen.  Also, my erstwhile rowing partner of four years, Rasika had immigrated to the US with his family.  The only other two experienced oarsmen from the previous year were, Chandev Abhayaratne and Sarit Wijeykoon.  So the challenge was met head on, and we trained with this new group as we had done so previously.  However, there was to be no smooth ride to the Regatta this time.  One week before the Regatta, our rookie in the A-four, Lahiru Senaratne got violently ill with the flu.  While he was resting at home trying to recuperate, practice was put on hold and we were forced to add in a last minute substitution for the A-fours race.  Despite our setbacks going into the regatta, on race day we put up a good hard fight and for a moment it almost looked like we could pull it off.  I recall that during A–pairs race, yelling at Lahiru to keep pulling even if it kills him (as he was still recuperating from his ailment), much to the bewilderment of the coxwain!  Chandev and Sarit also won their pairs event and Kushanatha Jeerasinghe went on to win A-sculls beating the heavily favored Thomian sculler.  A good fight it was that year, but it was just not meant to be.  That year we lost the Regatta to the Thomians 18-22, by the smallest possible margin.  I was naturally quite disappointed at the time, but we all knew that we had given it our best shot but came up just a little short in the end.  After leaving Royal in 89, a few of us went on to row for the Colombo Rowing Club in the ARAE in Calcutta, and also represent Sri Lanka in the FEARA, which we ended up winning in 1990.

Winning the Royal-Thomian in 1989 would certainly have been the icing on the cake for me to a fine rowing career at Royal.  But looking back on it now, I could not have asked for a better rowing experience at Royal.  It’s true that we put in a lot of time into the sport and pushed our bodies to the extreme at times, sometime to the point where we could not get out of bed in the morning.  The “pay-off”, in addition to the many victories we achieved, was that we also had a lot of fun in the process.  We had our annual trips to Hong Kong in April to compete in the HK Rowing Championships, which were a blast! The team-sprit and camaraderie that we developed as rowers was extended beyond the confines of the Rowing Club as well.  We took trips together, saw movies and, sometimes even studied as a group.  Many of the friendships that were cultivated through Rowing will last a lifetime.  Most of the oarsmen of those few core years still keep in very close contact, even though we are scattered throughout several continents.  It’s most heartening to know that despite spending a good portion of our senior college lives at the Rowing Club, most of us have gone on to do quite well in our careers becoming successful Business Men, Scientists, Designers, CFOs, Directors, and even Cabinet Ministers.  Whenever, I go back to Sri Lanka, even if it is a short trip, you can be sure that I will make my way over to the Colombo Rowing Club.  You can also be just as sure that there will be a few of the past Royal Oarsmen on any given day sipping a cold beer or two at the bar watching the boys training on the water and talking about old times……………………reminiscing.

Royal Rowing during the late 80s and early 90s was also blessed with one of the great coaches, Mr. Chula Samarasinghe.  Sadly, Chula Samarasinghe passed away in April of 2000 after succumbing to a very serious heart attack.  Chula or “Uncle Chula” as he was fondly known by the oarsmen, was revered for his coaching style which included miles of slow, hard and steady rows, which is a practice employed by many national crew teams today as well.  He also firmly believed in giving the oarsmen the responsibility of selecting the crews for the boats without interference.  He was a coach, mentor and friend to the Royal rowers.  Royal Rowing owes a debt of gratitude to Mr. Chula Samaringhe and he will be dearly missed in the Rowing scene in Sri Lanka.

Ranil Abeysinghe PhD
Group of 1989
Royal College Rowing Captain, 1989