Our correspondent reports . . .
Glourious weather for a head race, bright, some wind, little cloud. Freezing if you were standing on the bank! Oh, and by the way Simon it's 3 MILES not 3km.
Two divisions, a S2 4- and VetC4+ in the morning and a VetB 8o in the afternoon.
Spurred on by their efforts at Marlow Fours & Pairs the VetB 4- of Coles, Huntley, Tong & Phillips raced in the Senior 2 division. Given the opposition (Brookes, London, eventual winners Henley etc) they sensibly decided to hang back from their original starting position of 70th (at the start of the division) to let the quicker fours head off 1st. This didn't stop them having an excellent race to finish 6th in their category.
The Vet C4+ with a 50% change of personel (Billingham, Lenton, Robertson and House, coxed by Kate) flew down the course. Reversing the result from the Tideway Vets Fours head where Staines beat them by 11 seconds, they triumphed in winning their event. Another pot for the VetC's
The Nov/S4 Vets raced a VetC 4+, finishing 56th in 20:39 and the men's squad an E4+, finishing 12th in 17:19.
The VetB 8o (Coles,
Spencer-Jones, Henstridge, Lenton, Davies, Huntley, Tong, Phillips + Cox KT)
pushed off the boating raft with the cox box fading away to nothing. Undeterred
they wobbled proficiently down to the marhsalling area at the start, each in
a world of his own. The sound of the splashing of the oars only broken by cries
of "Got your number" as people spotted our bow number. Yep 118.
Unlike the 45 minute delay to the morning division, the afternoon one got away
reasonably promptly. Year's of rowing experience took over and Marlow's vets
tore through the start line and settled at their race pace of 31. Initially
they gained on the Nottingham University students as they pulled away from Abingdon's
Vet B crew behind them. Maintaining the rythm throught the twisty bends, Simon
kept the engine room busy with pushes while KT encouraged the stern pair to
greater efforts (if only the 2 had been combined!). Wallingford, in the meantime,
overtook Abingdon and then sat 4 lengths down on Marlow for the majority of
the course before using home advantage to close in the last 750m as they built
for the finish line.
Marlow's mens squad also raced and finished 13th 26 seconds ahead in a S2 8o
and 38th 23 seconds behind in a S3 8o lineup (am division). The Nov/S4 Vets
also raced VetB, finishing in 75th 18:02
Results
Wins