The Horouta Waka Ama club is well known in NZ. They've won many national titles and have even produced world champions.
All crews associated with the club have been training twice a day, six days a week since November last year.
Whetumatarau' is one of the club's J16 girl’s crew competing at the nationals. Their steerer, Sally Motu, says they're aiming for gold.
“Our main aim is to win all our races at the Waka Ama Nationals 2014.”
With only eight training days to go until the nationals, the crews will make sure every day counts in order to defend the titles they won at last year's nationals.