1956 Olympic marvel? Snippet 30

Tom Ohman our 1956 Olympic canoeist was no doubt bemused by this beast! What on earth has he discovered? ……………….read on to find out.

Answer: The Ballarat Council’s ‘Wendouree Submarine’ used to remove weed from Lake Wendouree.

Clearly the weeds were a major headache for the Ballarat Council.

It was later reported that “Olympic-conscious Ballarat is happy again.

The “Wendouree Submarine” weed-cutter has completely cleared the Olympic rowing course and surrounding waters of tangled weeds, which had threatened to ruin the lake for any sport.

And last weekend volunteers from the local sporting clubs began “Operation Weedlift” – to get the cut weeds OUT of t he lake and ONTO the bank.

The huge “weedstack” is the result of last Sunday’s clearing efforts.”

In addition, you may not be aware that the lake had to be extended a little to accommodate the 1000m events in both rowing and paddling events. An issue arose as boats, travelling at speed, had great trouble coming to a halt before reaching the end of the course!

There were some distance events too which required a complicated course with U-turns to be negotiated too.

And finally, talking with some Ballarat friends recently, they told me that there is still a mechanical weeding machine working on Lake Wendouree.!