Boating at Sons of the Thames at around 9:30 had allowed for a civilized departure from the club. There had been a few spits of drizzle, but nothing much to worry about dozing in a warm car speeding down the M4. But by the time it came to stand around outside and faff around rigging, the wind was up and the rain had started to come down.
It rained. It was pervasively damp; it was wet. Almost as much water dropping from the sky as flowing down the Tideway. And most of it dropped just as the call came to take off tops and prepare to turn and race. Two, sodden, Marlow Vet B- fours, and one Vet C+ four duly turned and raced.
A soggy build, wind up to mid-30s, but a reasonably sturdy settle
from Mortlake. Then, once clear of Barnes, it felt like wind with outgoing tide,
more smoothness and a sense of something being released from the boat off the
finishes. Both Marlow B4-s were holding position, both with fast solid rhythm
past Chiswick Eyot. A UL/Tyrian composite stomped past, lifting performance
in each Marlow boat, and providing contrast to the hordes of old quads left
flapping behind.
Once round under Hammersmith, however, the wind was more of a head-wind, and
the water chopped up bigtime. Somewhat bizarrely perhaps, the bigger boy's boat
stopped more than the smaller chaps, who held onto their finishes and-inspired
by a banshee yell "Push ten now, we've got an overlap... on MARLOW...."-in sets
of three of four relatively cohesive strokes, ground past on the Fulham bend.
It really is a long way when wet. A solid row in the C4+ hadn't prevented Kate
the cox from a thorough soaking.
Results were :
2nd November - The day started off well with JY and van keys at home and MSJ with van at MRC. That one was easily sorted, but the inability of Rich to wake up was less easily so: JY and Billers had just given him up for dead and set off 25 mins late when he was spotted coming the other way. All this meant that boat rigging and getting afloat at Sons had to be executed in an unusually efficient manner. Creaking under the strain, the single Gent's bog at Sons proved the only real bottleneck. And that was with only 3 crews boating! What was it like the day before we wondered?
Crew 24 VA 4- of Iain, MSJ, James Tong & Ed and Crew 26 VB 4- of Rich, Simon, JY & Billers set off on a still falling tide for the marshalling area below Putney Bridge. Yes, we were racing from Putney to Mortlake, on what we hoped was going to be an incoming tide. Arriving in the marshalling area, the tide still hadn't turned! Yet another Head race committee who can't read a tide table!!! We needn't have worried about Rich's lie in: The inevitable happened and the assembled divisions were informed of a 'delay in the start time of 10 mins'. 10 turned into 20 and the tide eventually started to trickle in.
So off we set: The B crew went off at what felt like a blistering pace (at least 30) and took Crew 25 within about 30 strokes. 'B' caught up with 'A' at about the Mile Post. Steaming up from behind crew 29, UL Tyrian overtook us both. 'B' held onto UL Tyrian until Hammersmith Bridge but then we turned into the headwind and it got a bit rough. The wheels came off a bit and it wasn't until we started getting into the old men's quads from the bandstand on that things picked up again. One hairy moment coming through Barnes bridge, overtaking 2 quads at once. Fortunately they decided to crash into each other rather than us.
Back to Hammersmith and the compulsory squad beer in AKRC.
The result: 'B' 18th overall, 2nd in VB in 24:38 'A' 39th overall in 25:39 UL
Tyrian won VB by a street in 23:36 (3rd overall)
Rather disappointed to be beaten by the winning C, D, E (!) & F (!!!) 4-s but
perhaps some of that can be put down to them starting later and having more
tide.