Old Head of the Lake boat remains, donated back to Ballarat High

By Kim Quinlan
Updated November 2 2012 - 6:15pm, first published November 30 2011 - 1:41pm
A GOOD FIND: Ian Martin and fellow former Ballarat High School rowers John Menadue, Phil Whitla, Frank Ritchie (coach) and Bill Bunning with the JH Refshauge, which was rescued from a local tip. Picture: Lachlan Bence
A GOOD FIND: Ian Martin and fellow former Ballarat High School rowers John Menadue, Phil Whitla, Frank Ritchie (coach) and Bill Bunning with the JH Refshauge, which was rescued from a local tip. Picture: Lachlan Bence

WHEN former Ballarat High School rower Ian Martin walked into a secondhand store in Humffray Street a few years ago and found the remnants of an old cedar boat, he knew he was looking at an important piece of the city’s rowing history.Mr Martin bought the bow half of the boat, the JH Refshauge, used by Ballarat High School’s 1956 and 1957 winning Head of the Lake teams. In 2005, the secondhand dealer had found the intact boat at a local rubbish dump and told the tip operator he would return with a trailer to pick it up. While he rushed home to get the trailer, half of the boat was run over by a truck.The dealer took the remainder of the Refshauge back to his shop, where a couple of days later, Mr Martin walked through the door.“I went into the secondhand shop looking for old door knobs when I saw the Refshauge,” said Mr Martin, who was one of the last Ballarat High rowers to use the boat in 1965, taking out second place in that year’s Head of the Lake.Mr Martin has donated the Refshauge to the Ballarat High School Boat Club, which will upgrade what remains of the boat and display it in their shed on Lake Wendouree.Surviving members of the 1956-57 BHS team were on hand earlier this week to witness the handover to the school’s boat club. John Menadue, Phil Whitla, Bill Bunning and the team’s coach Frank Ritchie, now aged in his mid-80s, reminisced about the days of rowing the Refshauge, which was named after the first principal of the Ballarat Agricultural High School, now known as Ballarat High.

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