![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/regatta.jpeg\")
Volkswagen St. John’s and Capital Home Hardware have both repeated as champions at the 207th running of the Royal St. John’s Regatta. (Jenna Benchetrit\/CBC)<\/p>\nVolkswagen St. John’s and Capital Home Hardware have both repeated as champions at the 207th running of the Royal St. John’s Regatta. (Jenna Benchetrit\/CBC)<\/p>\n
The winners circle at the Royal St. John’s Regatta has a sense of familiarity to it in 2025, as both Volkswagen St. John’s and Capital Home Hardware are back-to-back champions.<\/p>\n
Capital Home Hardware won the first championship race on the men’s side. The crew\u00a0rowed an official time of 9:55.24\u00a0on Quidi Vidi Lake, beating second-place team East Coast Kia by 22\u00a0seconds.<\/p>\n
Capital Home Hardware also won the regatta in 2024, and finished second place in both 2022 and 2023.<\/p>\n
In the women’s championship, Volkswagen St. John’s won\u00a0first place.<\/p>\n
Thousands of onlookers gathered on the shores of Quidi Vidi Lake for the annual\u00a0race, which draws thousands of people lakeside to take in games, try tasty food and cheer as the boats cut through the water.<\/p>\n
Thousands descend on Quidi Vidi for races<\/p>\n
The regatta is North America’s oldest continuous sporting event, typically running\u00a0on the first Wednesday each\u00a0August. The decision for races to go\u00a0triggered\u00a0the unique\u00a0mid-week, weather-dependent citywide\u00a0holiday.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The first race\u00a0began\u00a0at 8 a.m. NT.<\/p>\n
Keith White, vice-president of the Royal St. John’s Regatta Committee, said the decision to proceed was unanimous.<\/p>\n
WATCH |\u00a0The CBC’s Jessica Singer is at Quidi Vidi Lake:\u00a0<\/strong> Different month, but all your favourites are still pondside at the Royal St. John\u2019s Regatta<\/p>\n Is it the rowing? The food and drink? Or the social aspect that draws you to Quidi Vidi Lake? The 207th Royal St. John\u2019s Regatta is on and the CBC\u2019s Jessica Singer takes us through the familiar sights and sounds. \u201cOne dollar holding up the wheel!\u201d<\/p>\n He said rowers build friendships through the sport that last decades and lead to strong ties, including standing in each other’s weddings.<\/p>\n “The athletes that row, these are real athletes. They take so much pride in their sport, their training, on and off the pond, 12 months a year,”\u00a0White told CBC News.<\/p>\n This year also marked the first time the event\u00a0had\u00a0an open category\u00a0for all rowers<\/a>, regardless of their gender.<\/p>\n Sophie Connors, cheering from land and jumping up and down, was there to watch her mother and aunt race.<\/p>\n “I want them to win,” she said while smiling,\u00a0adding\u00a0she doesn’t know a lot about the rules of the sport\u00a0but her mother trains a lot. “She’s really strong.”<\/p>\n Kateryna Sobko\u00a0was also lakeside with her family. This year was their first experience of the regatta since they moved to Newfoundland and Labrador from Poland last\u00a0fall.<\/p>\n “We enjoy this day. We love to find new information about Newfoundland, about Newfoundland’s celebration,” Sobko said.\u00a0“[My daughter] likes to choose who will be the winner all the time.”<\/p>\n The day got started well before the first race, with food trucks setting up\u00a0and spectators starting to arrive for the early morning paddles.<\/p>\n “We come every year for the mini doughnuts,” race watcher Alana Gale said. “Whether it’s the morning, the afternoon, we’re like, ‘That’s our first stop.”<\/p>\n Ziggy Peelgood’s\u00a0owner Todd Hickey\u00a0estimates there are usually between 30,000 to 40,000 people who head to the lake each year.<\/p>\n “We’ll probably serve six, seven thousand people,” Hickey told CBC News.<\/p>\n He said he enjoys the excitement of getting ready for the big race day, and the day before the regatta also tends to bring in good business.<\/p>\n Getting a hot plate of fries is a Regatta tradition for people like Patrick Collins, who visited\u00a0during a trip home from Aurora, Ont.<\/p>\n “I remember, as a little boy, being here. I think I was in Grade 9, and I lined up for french fries. And I remember getting my french fries, and I was a walking back, somebody bumped into me and all my fries fell on the ground,” he said with a laugh.<\/p>\n “It was a sad story, but I got another plate of fries later.”<\/p>\n ‘Like Christmas Day’<\/p>\n Seth Hyde, who\u00a0rowed\u00a0with the Outfitters team, didn’t expect to race on Wednesday.\u00a0 A team member was injured and Hyde got the call.<\/p>\n “Twenty-four hours ago I didn’t know I was rowing in the boat today,” he said Wednesday morning.<\/p>\n “We’re really excited. That team has won their last three regattas so I’m really excited to be in the boat with them.”<\/p>\n Hyde is\u00a0a seventh-generation rower, and his father is a member of the regatta’s hall of fame.<\/p>\n “Regatta Day is like Christmas Day for me,” he said.<\/p>\n The annual event has\u00a0only been moved a few times in its history \u2014 this year because of the Canada Summer Games, which begins on Aug. 8 and will make use of the historic lake over the event’s two weeks.<\/p>\n Download our\u00a0<\/strong>free CBC News app<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0to sign up for push alerts for CBC Newfoundland and Labrador. Sign up for our\u00a0<\/strong>daily headlines newsletter here<\/strong><\/a>. Click\u00a0<\/strong>here to visit our landing page<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Volkswagen St. John’s and Capital Home Hardware have both repeated as champions at the 207th running of the…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":105998,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[2147,50],"class_list":{"0":"post-105997","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-canada","9":"tag-news"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114944657536610790","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105997","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=105997"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105997\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/105998"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=105997"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=105997"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=105997"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/1753916172_878_default.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"Crowd](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/regatta-crowds.JPG\")
Thousands of people head to Quidi Vidi Lake to take in the regatta. (Ryan Cooke\/CBC)<\/p>\n![\"Close](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/red-team-regatta.JPG\")
The Royal St. John’s Regatta is a municipal, weather-dependent holiday. (Ryan Cooke\/CBC)<\/p>\n