Arriving in Lake Karapiro with a team of North Esk Rowing Club athletes, club veteran Patrick Bird took it up to some of the world’s best master rowers to medal in eight of the 12 events he entered and claim four gold, three silver and one bronze.

NERC president Reg Green said while the team had performed exceptionally well, with each member collecting at least one medal, there was no doubting Bird had been the standout performer.

“We haven’t had anybody who’s performed that well from North Esk and I don’t think Tasmania-wide for a world masters regatta like that,” Green said. 

“We were trying to find out whether anybody else in the whole regatta had got that sort of hit rate.

“We couldn’t find anybody who had, but the way the results were set up... it was difficult to see whether he was the highest achiever in Australia or indeed from anybody around the world for that particular event, but he would have been right up there.”

The 2017/18 rowing season will begin in spring.