Calm conditions and a great venue saw the best turn-out so far in the series with 25 waka contesting the W6 women's race and 27 waka in the W6 mens race.

In the women's, Mitimitaga continued to show their class through winning in a time of 44m 23s, over three minutes ahead of the second Mitimitaga crew.

The first AROCA club was Orakei Vairua O Te Onu who consolidated their series leadership by coming in third. Tamaki Shadz and Bladz continued their winning ways by coming in first in the masters division, ahead of Waitakere and Pupuke Moana.

There was close competition in the men's race with only a few seconds separating the top crews throughout the out and back course. In the end the series leaders Waitakere He Kotahi took it out in a time of 41m 31s, just ahead of Pupuke Moana with Taniwha Grizzlies teams filling the next two placings. Taniwha Grizzlies were the Masters winners, followed by Te Toki and Taniwha Men in Black.

This series is a great chance for introduction to the sport and 8 novice crews competed in the 5k novice race, with Tamaki winning through in the men's and Waitakere in the women's. The growing Junior competition saw Waitakere All Things Nice take out the 5k Junior 16 Girls in a very competitive division.

The W1 and W2 5k races also saw close competition amongst large numbers of competitors. 22 paddlers competed in the Women's W1 with last year's series winner Bernie Murch powering through to take the win ahead of Heidi Verhagen and Leanna Haronga. Liz Tane won the Masters from Shelley Arlidge and Sugar Te Paa.

The growing interest in W2 racing saw keen competition with Frances and Aroha from Pineula winning from Cheryl and Wati-Ann from the Cook Islands club and Tarare and Sachan from Orakei.

In the men's W1 there were 29 competitors. Series leader Brent Whitcombe showed his class as series leader, winning from Bo Herbert with Keri Stevens coming in third. W2 experts and series leaders Mark and Marty from Taniwha took out the W2 ahead of Andrew and Peter from Waitakere and Wheturere from Taniwha.

All in all a great day of racing. Everyone's looking forward to the next event in the series, to be hosted by Akarana at Stanmore Bay on 7 June.

Full results and the series update will be posted shortly.