The Norway Bay pier was packed with eager spectators on Saturday to witness the final weekend of the annual regatta competition. 

Fans lined the stands to watch around 100 kids compete in various swimming races, from backstroke to breaststroke to relays. It was the third weekend of competition in the annual regatta, in which athletes compete in various sports such as triathlon, basketball and many others. 

Regatta organizer Carrie Bothwell said the winners are determined by a cumulative point system from all the events they entered. 

“They get points, and then whoever gets the most points wins a trophy,” she said, adding that unfortunately some of their competition days got rained out, so certain athletes didn’t get to compete in their favourite events. 

“That’s the only issue, but there’s not much to be done about it.” 

Four athletes will be determined champions of the event, although the Norway Bay Municipal Association (NBMA), which organizes the event, had not announced the winners by the time this newspaper went to print. 

Bothwell said that registration for the NBMA is down this year. She said she believes the federal government’s return-to-office policy may have something to do with the decline. 

“Now there’s obviously a lot of people who live in Ottawa and work for the government, and they’ve all been mandated to go to back in office. So that’s a little tough.” 

While numbers may be down, Bothwell said they are not at a critical level. She gestured toward the large crowd assembled, joking that there is one reliable metric volunteers use to know how they are doing for numbers on any given year. 

“We go by hot dogs. If the 200 hot dogs don’t sell out, then I know numbers are low,” she said, adding that the hot dogs were gone by 11:30 that morning. 

Bothwell thanked the volunteers for making the event possible year after year, and keeping the regatta tradition alive.

“At the end you’ll see everybody here [ . . . ] Sometimes we actually have so many people that we don’t have jobs for them.”