Columba College's rowing squad must have hardly believed its luck when Josie and Ella Herbert arrived.
Rowing had not been on the 13-year-old twins' radar until they arrived at the school from Heriot in term 2 this year.
But after hearing about it in the school notices and watching a video from the seniors in the hostel, they decided to give it a go.
That provided the school with not one but two new coxswains - and, it turns out, two relatively successful ones.
Both returned from the recent Otago championships at Lake Ruataniwha with accolades.
Josie was named cox of the day across all crews at the regatta on finals day, while Ella coxed her senior fours crew to a silver medal.
It was Ella who made the first move towards the sport - training sessions initially clashed with Josie's dance.
However, not to be left out, Josie quickly put her hand up.
''We were just trying to find people to do it and then Josie said 'I'll come and join','' Ella said.
As coxswains have a weight limit of 55kg, it is a role only certain people can fill.
At 43kg, both girls are well under that and left no doubt in the minds of coaches Matt Adam and Nat Matheson where they would fit.
''He just looked at me and said 'you're a cox','' Josie laughed.
Since then both sisters had been setting out to master steering the boats and being as motivational as they could towards their crews.
In doing that, they join the rest of the squad in getting up at 5am to train four mornings a week, as well as afternoons on those days.
They also had several training camps which involved 4.30am starts.
Both enjoyed it, though, and were used to the early starts from lending a hand on the farm at home.
There they had attended Blue Mountain College and been active in playing netball, basketball, cricket and tennis.
They carried on with netball and basketball in Dunedin, while Josie continued to dance.
Alongside Ella's crew silver, Columba had won a second senior silver, and all of its novice crews made finals at the Otago championships.
They would follow a training programme over the holidays and also have a training camp tagged on to next month's Canterbury Championships.
The season's big meeting is the Maadi Cup, to be held at Lake Karapiro in March.
