Lynette Skelton

A PIONEER on the water

Diocesan is known for its track record of rowing success. What is less well known is how the efforts of Dio Old Girl Lynette Skelton (PY 1959) made New Zealand women’s rowing possible in the first place.

Lynette (front row centre) with the New Zealand women’s coxed four team.

From the moment 18-year-old Lynette Skelton dipped her oar into the water on the Tamaki River she was hooked. At university she had been drawn to the notice in the cloisters on the Auckland

University Ladies’ Club Notice Board encouraging women to try rowing.

Lynette remembered many happy hours rowing the family dinghy at Titirangi

Beach and signed up. The year was 1959 and her club, Auckland University

Ladies’ Rowing Club, was the only club for women rowers at that time.

In the fifties and sixties, rowing was a male domain and definitely didn’t include events for secondary school-aged girls. In this confronting environment, everything was a challenge that young women like Lynette stood up to, and up for. Men considered rowing far too strenuous for ‘the fairer sex’ and it was even believed to affect a woman’s ability to have children. While there were a couple of pockets of women rowers around the country, they were usually not allowed into the clubs while the men were there, they could not be club members, and they had to beg to borrow a boat. For someone like Lynette, whose Diocesan education had taught her that women could do and achieve anything, this did not go down at all well.

A newspaper article from 1966 reads: “She is a pert petite blonde from Auckland who is described as a mixture of Don Quixote and a crusading Emily Pankhurst. Her name is Lynette Skelton and her positive approach and inflexible spirit have been responsible for the formation of a New Zealand Women’s Rowing Association of which Lynette is President. Lynette is 26 and is now preparing to throw down the gauntlet and joust with men in a man’s world.”

And joust she did. For the first time ever in 1967 the New Zealand Amateur Rowing Association decided the following year to include one women’s race, the coxed fours, at the championships held at Lake Waihola in the South Island. Lynette’s pestering had cracked the glass ceiling!

However, the women were only allowed to race over a distance of 1000 metres – 2000 metres was considered too arduous for them. For those familiar with the 1000m mark at Lake Karapiro, it is always windy. There was no held start. If they were a little late to the start because of the conditions, the women had to put up with sexist comments like, “What were you doing? Powdering your noses?” If the weather was bad or the regatta schedule was delayed, the women’s race was always cancelled – the men were worried they might sink!

In 1966 the first New Zealand Women’s crew, a coxed four, was selected to compete in Adelaide at the Australian Championships. Lynette stroked the crew to victory ahead of the Australian crews, setting a surprising 39 rating and steadying it to 37.

Reflecting on that race, Lynette later described it as her most memorable moment in rowing. “There were many races that were memorable but really when our first New Zealand women’s crew went to Adelaide in 1966, coached by Eric Craies, we won the Australian Women’s Fours race to the amazement of Australia and New Zealand when nobody had taken us seriously. Women were not the respected sportspeople that they are today in New Zealand.”

In 1971 Lynette decamped for Sydney where she was thrilled to find many women’s rowing clubs. For the next 40 or so years, she continued to row, winning a few Australian titles and involving herself in all levels of the sport, including becoming President of the Union of Oarswomen in NSW. Over the years many have benefitted from her coaching at the Mossman, Balmain and Sydney Rowing Clubs. She had a reputation as a firm, perceptive coach with a good sense of humour.

Later, Lynette’s passion lay in masters rowing and she has over 400 medals to prove it – these are no weekend rowers. Lynette has rowed most rivers and lakes in the United Kingdom and Europe, including the Po, the Douro, and the Venice lagoon regatta. She even won at the Henley Veterans’ Regatta and also competed at the 2012 World Rowing Masters Regatta in Duisburg, Germany.

In 2015, Lynette was interviewed for a story in the West End Rowing Club newsletter. Asked to name her best rowing achievement, she said: “There are so many races over the 55 years to choose from, I can’t say that I can pinpoint one race that meant more than so many other races that were all hard work and you go over the line with a huge grin, and feel so proud and emotional to have pushed yourself to the limits to beat the opposition. There are over 400 trophies in my lounge to remind me of the wonderful elating instances of success in the best sport in the world.”

Lynette’s last race was the 2017 World Masters Games at Lake Karapiro where she won a bronze medal. So what kept her love of rowing alive for 50 years? “It’s like a drug,” says Lynette. “You get in a boat and you just adore it so much that you can’t help but keep rowing forever. It’s the water, it’s the challenge, it’s the companionship of other people in the crew boats. The challenge really is the main thing.”

To this day Lynette continues to espouse the value and the joy of rowing as a sport. It has been the great love of her life and Lynette’s contribution to the sport has been immense. Diocesan School for Girls can be justifiably proud of its former pupil’s role in the delivery of rowing to the women of New Zealand.

Our sincere thanks to Lynette’s close friend Sheryl Wells for her help in compiling this story.