The Recreation Reserve and adjacent Wimmera River will be a hive of activity this weekend as the Dimboola Rowing Club hosts its 132nd regatta and the 10th Head of the Wimmera.

Crews will converge on the Wimmera River on Saturday to participate in a program of 59 events over the picturesque 750 metre course that runs adjacent to the Recreation Reserve.

When entries closed on Monday afternoon, over 380 competitors representing 27 clubs from across Victoria had registered.

Sixteen Dimboola Rowing Club members will be competing in 21 races, ranging from Under 15 and Under 17 male and females to Masters.

In the Male Masters Coxed Fours Rodney Pilmore, from the Banks Rowing Club in Melbourne, will team up with locals Robin and Lyndon Kuhne, John Nichols and cox Ben Salter, having successfully rowed with Robin and Lyndon’s father, Ivan Kuhne, fifty years ago at the Dimboola regatta.

Pilmore will then join forces again with Nichols to compete in the Masters Double Sculls.

Other locals to take to the water in a variety of races will include Fraya Colbert, Rory Hallinan-Johns, Tilli Menzel, Tori Menzel, John Nichols, Alyssa Petschel, Tara Petschel, Alexandra Salter, Madalyn Toet, Brook Ward, Indy Ward, Joanne Wolthuis and Tonnis Wolthuis.

Rowing will commence between 7.30 am and 8.00 am on Saturday morning and will continue to around 6.00 in the evening.

On Sunday two Dimboola crews will be amongst the biggest ever field to tackle the 6.2 kilometre Head of the Wimmera course and a further two crews from Corio Bay will be coxed by Dimboola club members.

A total of fifty five crews, twenty more than last year, from eighteen clubs have entered.

The Dimboola crews will be the Under 15 and Under 17 girls coxed quad sculls.

This will be the first regatta to make use of the new launching pontoon which was officially opened last month, replacing the one that had served the club well for many decades.