Cambridge Autumn Regatta 2009

The last regatta of the season saw the Women’s Squad bow out in fine style, taking the honours in the CRA Eight with two of this crew in the other winning boat of the day, a Mixed Coxed Four. The other crews didn’t fare as well, but another enjoyable day’s racing at Cambridge.

Mixed IM2 4+
A bit of a scratch boat (they’d rowed once together) but a very powerful crew saw off another X-Press crew in their straight final. A good hard race from start to finish saw our crew taking the honours by a length. A couple of firsts as well, with Tim getting his first rowing pot at MKRC after his move from Star and Steph picking up her first coxing pot. The crew didn’t have time to catch their breath before four of the crew had to leap straight out of this boat into the Women’s Eight for the final!

Women’s CRA Eight
The first round saw a comfortable win (four lengths) over X-Press Boat Club, with a strong performance from the crew in their first race together. Crew positions were rejigged from St. Neots, with Helen J taking up stroke duties from Charlene, to allow more conventional rigging of the boat. The final saw Champions of the Thames putting up a harder fight but again the strength and technique of our ladies proved too much and they pulled away for a one length win. Deserved pots all round, all the better as, being a CRA event, it was non-qualifying, so no points! A notable first was Tim coxing his way to his first coxing pot – a good day for him following rapidly on from the Mixed boat. All credit to Jo and Lindy who’d just raced in the winning mixed crew.

This second win allowed Lindy to bow out on a real high before departing to Derby Uni, with two pots from the day. We’ll miss you!

Women’s IM3 4+
A narrow defeat for this crew, losing out by under a length to a Peterborough boat. A good result considering this was this crew’s first race and they had to wait an extraordinarily long time for the race and consequently were very, very cold. This delay was unfortunate as Peterborough had their steering fail at the start and had to row back to get it fixed. I guess the lesson is that if this happens again, go back with the competition and not sit around getting cold.

Women’s Novice 4+
Knocked out in the first round by the eventual winners, Maidstone Invicta. Definite progress by the novice ladies though, tough luck getting such strong opponents in the first race.

Mixed IM3 4-
Yet another new crew combination, with Pierre-Yves making his steering debut in a quad. Despite a good start, against a strong looking Guildford quad, we dropped behind and lack of practice on a river course led us to steer across to the bank. After rattling a few blades on some of the crews heading for the start we then clashed heavily with a double that obviously didn’t feel keeping to the bank was an instruction for them and had strayed into the racing lane. This stopped us dead and, although we got going and sculled very well after this, we were to far adrift and had an “easily” verdict against us.

Vet C 2x-
This was Pierre-Yves’ and my first outing since our win at Peterborough and a combination of lack of outings and a very big and strong crew from Poplar Blackwell saw us drop away (although we did hold them for the first couple of hundred meters) to finish 3-4 lengths down.

Overall
Despite a big entry from the Juniors, a mix up on dates led to the whole lot scratching. Sorry Cambridge!

Very pleasing was the large number of supporters we had, so real thanks to Tom, Barry and Rob for braving the cold and wind to come along and cheer us on!

The organisation at the event is getting better each year – the delays this year were down to “incidents” (such as the Peterborough four losing their steering and a couple of capsizes) and a large number of river craft. Particular mention to the arrogant house boat who “couldn’t hear” calls to stop because there was a race on the course – fortunately the single scullers managed to avoid this moron.

A couple of great examples of coxing muppetry illuminated the day – one junior coxed quad so busy chatting amongst themselves that they ignored all the marshals and umpires telling them to keep in but award of the day was the eight at the end of the day. Despite two eights coming down the course their cox thought the appropriate line was 90 degrees to the bank! Fortunately, he managed to just get out of the way – just as well it wasn’t a close race as the losing crew had to switch lanes. The idiot then, despite being told to keep in, let his stern drift out again, right in front of the next race. His excuse – he didn’t expect there to be any races on the course….

Results and Photos

Results on line at the Cambridge 99 website

Photos on line at the MKRC photo site, including some extra ones from Barry Rivett

St. Neots Regatta 2009

I guess it shows how far we have progressed, especially the Women’s squad, that coming away from St. Neots without a single win feels really disappointing. There were some very good races and close finishes across both days plus a really good social evening on the Saturday but not a successful week-end overall.

Saturday
First crew out was the Womens IM3 4+. This was a slight change from Bedford with Yemin replacing Charlene (both availability and points!) and they went out (most surprisingly!) in the first round to the Broxbourne crew they had beaten the previous week. Broxbourne went on to win the event – typically, ours was the closest race they had all day. Next up was John Cunningham – no, not JC in person but the boat, racing with a Mixed IM2 8+. Despite a TOTAL lack of practice they gave Lea a hard row, losing by just one and a third lengths over the 1K course. Some very interesting comments from the marshals about it being unusual to see John’s name on anything other than a bar tab….

Following this was the biggest mismatch of the day. Having entered our Vet C quad and agreed to switch to IM3 if no competition, we were not impressed by finding we were racing instead at IM2. The race would have been a walk over for Star even if we hadn’t had two boat stopping crabs. Our annoyance at this was then compounded by not being entered at IM3 on Sunday although there was opposition. The whole draw process was a complete joke – wake up SNRC and join the 21st century and use OARA! As it was, we might as well have not raced it was so one sided.

Final race of the day was Steve and I in the Vet D 2x. Racing against the losing finalists from Henley Vets was always going to be a tall order but we were pleased with our row, even though we lost by a couple of lengths.

Following the day’s racing we retired for a few beers and a barbie (one of dozens, despite the insistence that no clubs were to have a barbie – there was a haze of smoke hanging over the field!)

Sunday
So to the 500m sprints on Sunday. The first boat out was the Womens Novice 4+. Despite being drawn against Barnes Bridge Ladies, their opposition was Doncaster. Apparently, the event was re-drawn as one crew had scratched the previous evening, so we were moved – only for another crew to scratch leaving us disadvantaged. And I thought draws were fixed and if a crew scratched that was your good fortune. Anyhow, our novice women rowed a stormer, despite being off line at the start, to come through for a win. Next up was (can’t figure this out) Barnes Bridge Ladies. A real disappointment here, as one of the crew caught a boat stopper when they were leading comfortably, handing the race to BBL on a plate. A real pity as they looked well on top and who knows where they would have finished.

Second crew of the day was a Mixed Quad, with Steve and I being joined by Clare and Bex. Seeing as we had never rowed as a crew before, losing to Doncaster by a length wasn’t bad!

Next up was what was described by the race commentator as the Women’s Blue Riband event – the IM3 8+. Really, really nice to see us able to put out a ladies eight – and a very strong one at that. They had Maidstone Invicta in the first round and once they settled and got the power on, rowed through the other crew for a comfortable win. The final saw an epic race, again with Barnes Bridge Ladies. Steve and I had a grandstand view of the finish of this one, having just boated for our Vet D 2x race. The boats were pretty level over the last 100m, with both crews clearly giving it everything. BBL had just enough though, pipping our crew by just a third of a length. Credit to the BBL crew, they had only de-noviced the previous day and look like a class act – very gracious in victory as well.

Steve and I had a re-run of the previous day’s race, against the same Peterborough pair. Whatever the reason, it just didn’t come together and we wound up losing by a bigger margin over 500m than over 1000m the previous day! Oh well…

Photos on-line at MKRC Photo site but no results from SNRC yet.

We do like St Neots week-end but this year was, I’m sorry to say, an organisational shambles. Our Novice 4+ was “missed” from the Saturday draw, the quad bumped to IM2 without consultation and dropped from IM3 on Sunday and many of our boats just dropped completely. By the way, we are still waiting for a refund on these events – as a small club, we can’t afford to subsidise big clubs like SNRC and will have to think long and hard about racing there next year.

Peterborough Spring Regatta 2009

Following last week-end’s glorious weather at Dorney, for the Met, the Peterborough Spring Regatta took place in more typical British Spring weather. Cold, grey and wet, especially Sunday. Still, the racing more than made up for it, with some excellent races on Saturday, culminating in two wins on Sunday.

Saturday

First up were the Women’s IM3 4+ crew (Helen J, Paula, Becks and Clare with Lindy making a coxing début). Despite a very early clash of blades with Parr’s Priory they kept their nerve to finish second and secure a place in the repêchage. Next up were the Men’s IM3 4+ crew, a first outing together for Henry, Will, Dan and Pete, Karen coxing them. This was a really exciting race with a the guys making an incredible last charge to force a photo finish with Norwich – that last effort was worth it as they took the heat win and progressed to the final.

The W.IM3 4+ crew were then back in action in their repêchage, but were dropped to third place behind strong crews from Broxbourne and Trafford. Quite a hard race for the spectators with both us and Trafford in virtually identical black/green kit!

In the IM3 4+ final, the guys trailed in last – still, a good showing in their first race together (especially as Dan was trying so hard he came off his seat!).  Lots of potential here.

The last races of the day were the IM3 4x- boat (Pierre-Yves, Simon, me and Steve); a good start kept us in contention early on but we fell away in the latter stages of the race to finish last in a straight final. This race also took the edge off of Steve and I who raced just 40 minutes later in the Vet D 2x-, again trailing in last. Our final crew of the day were Nick and Paul as an IM2 2- pair, finishing second in their final (OK, only three boats and one was disqualified, but they were second!

No wins today but some very good performances, especially from the men’s four.

Sunday

Another Women’s IM3 4+ crew out today, this time the crew that finished fourth at the Met, Charlene, Jo, Lindy and Steph, with Paula making her coxing bow. Quite a surprise for some of the crews from yesterday as they thought it was the same boat (especially one Uni crew overhead saying they had an easy run as they’d beaten MK the day before…). This crew just blew away the opposition in the first round, finishing very clear of the others to move through to the semi-final. Putting down a marker, they were the only crew below 2 minutes in this round.

The second round race was pretty much a repeat of the first; dominating the race from the start to finish at least a length clear of second; again, the only boat under 2 minutes in the semis, this put them into pole position for the final.

Pierre-Yves and I took advantage of a break in our crews racing to get out for a quick practice session. We figured this was a good idea as we’d not raced together before and hadn’t been out in a double together for many months. A good session with quite a few starts thrown in – this was to pay dividends later.

We returned to the course to go out in the IM3 4x- crew that had raced the previous day; another good start saw us in early contention but our lack of race practice as a crew showed and after a couple of mistakes we dropped back to third. This was good enough to see us through to the final though, the first time we’d not finished last so another indicator of progress.

Straight out of the quad and into the double saw Pierre-Yves and I going off as a Vet Novice 2x-. The practice really paid off as we hit an almost perfect start which took us a couple of lengths clear. We were then able to sit on the other crews through the race, finishing first easily. A very nice feeling, watching the other crews trying to hunt us down – not been there before!

Just 40 minutes to recover and Pierre-Yves and I were back in the final of the VN 2x-. Another great start put us in the lead, although Beccles pushed us very hard over the first 200m we powered away to win and de-novice. Pretty proud of our time as well, at 1m 52s in the final. A really great feeling coming through the last 100m knowing we’d got this in the bag (barring any coconut related incident).

Having abandoned Steve for Pierre-Yves, he’d entered as a Vet D 1x in his first solo race for some time. A strong sculling performance saw him come second, still very much in contention with the leader.

It was now time for the W.IM3 4+ final. Clearly their performances had fired up the other crews and DMU flew off the start to hold the lead for the first half of the race. Our girls’ power and strength asserted itself in the second half and they stormed through to take the win with Jo de-novicing at last (15 pots, no points!). Again, they posted a sub 2-minute time – the only crew to break that barrier and they did so in each race.

Our final event of the day was the IM3 4x- final. Very similar to the other races, a good start but fading away during the race.

So, overall a pretty good week-end for the club in general and me in particular! I think I’ve just set a club record as the oldest person to de-novice; I suspect this one will stand for a long time! Sets us up well for the Nat Vets next week (although I’ve just blown our IM3 status!)

Photos on line now at MKRC fotopic site – do check out just how relaxed Pierre-Yves is in both races….

John Cunningham afloat!

Nope, not what you’re thinking!!

A really momentous event at training this morning. After many, many months of hard work by John (the person), John Cunningham (the boat) was ready. By good fortune we had nine guys down this morning and were able to take out the boat for it’s first run since we got it.

All of the effort from John (and Bob) is really worth it. The boat went really well, even with a scratch crew (including a couple of newbies) was quick and responsive and just sat so nicely. Mind you, I’d have loved to have seen John’s face (he was at bow for the maiden voyage) when Steve nearly steered straight into a buoy!

Even I enjoyed the outing (this is praise coming from someone who wonders where the second blade has gone in a sweep oar boat) – the funniest moments were seeing Nick and Pierre-Yves swapping seats; in the middle of the lake. Just a slight nervousness in Nick’s voice when he called for us to sit the boat, while he was standing up…

Good training outings for the ladies again, some very encouraging signs from these crews. Roll on the next race!

Training Weekend

After a bit of on/off drama on Friday, with the river state going from red to yellow, we finally got the “go” for the planned Ladies’ squad training weekend. This was at, for us, a new location at the RAF Rowing Club at Danesfield (courtesy of Steve’s contacts).
After normal training on Saturday morning (good weather for a change!) we loaded up and headed off. No dramas with the towing this time until we got to Danesfield – the turn into the club is a very sharp left hander, not possible with the trailer, so we had to go all the way into Henley, round a roundabout and back. Still, got there OK and offloaded boats for the first training session.

The first session comprised the eight and the quad. Steve, Paula, Steph and Charlene were in the quad (Steve and I being honorary girlies for the weekend) with the other girls in the eight with me coxing. Really annoyingly, I checked the cox box before moving the boat to the river – almost inevitably by the time the boat was on the water it had a fit of the sulks and wouldn’t work. Oh joy, coxing an eight without a cox box. For a long distance row.

The river was high and the stream running very fast. This made the first big corner extremely interesting – it’s almost 90 degrees and has an awesome cross stream. Getting round this was a bit hairy, having to stop and back down, spin, back a bit more and spin a bit more (all the more difficult with coxing directions having to be relayed down the boat as my voice didn’t carry). Still, we got round in the end and carried on. It’s a nice bit of river here and we reckon around two miles uninterrupted stretch with virtually no traffic on the Saturday (I guess sane people were still staying off the water).

It was really good for the crews to get in some good, long and hard practice – a run of well over 3k without stopping compared to our usual 1k on Caldecotte lake. We managed to get in two return trips before calling it a day. On getting back to the club we then did some work in the fours, with Steve compiling a video nasty to watch later in the evening! Parking the boats was an even greater challenge, with the stream determined to carry us off.

After finishing for the day, we then set up the barbie and cracked open a few beers. Everyone had chipped in with food, so there was loads to go round – still don’t know who got the burgers that dropped through the grill…

Following dinner, we watched the video of the earlier sessions, picking out some interesting styles and tips. Best one was a start with Laura – she’d never done a start before and Lindy was explaining what was involved when the “go” was given. Chaos ensued but she picked it up well on the second time. Paula then followed the family tradition of duck battering, whacking one round the head as it came up from a dive, neatly causing Charlene to catch a crab. Showing the competitive spirit in the club, we settled down for a quiet game of Rapidough afterward. Shall we say the rules were being bent to the maximum with very liberal interpretations of what was allowed…

So to the Sunday. Again the quad and the eight although different combinations this time. I managed the first bend much better this time, actually getting round without stopping. The session was a hard one this time, four minutes at half pressure, two at three quarter pressure. This was certainly starting to tell, mainly on hands (and my voice – the cox box still not working). It showed how fast the stream was, comparing return runs to the upstream ones.

After a quick lunch, time for the afternoon session. And time for me to stop being the shouty one at the back and get rowing (well, sculling actually). Steve and I headed out in the double, with two fours also going out. Great fun in the double, having to go at half pressure just to keep moving. We took it down to the far end of our stretch before spinning and coming back at Head Race pace. This got very interesting as the river traffic was picking up and we got hit by a couple of really big wakes. The first one of these caught me completely by surprise – this led to a major crab and this spun us into the bank. After extricating ourselves, we carried on to the end with no further mishaps. We did catch another couple of big wakes and by the end we had an inch of water in the boat an I looked like I’d been in the river.

At the end of this session we all headed back in. Although we’d planned to get another session in, all the girls were pretty much done in (mainly sore hands) so we decided to call it a day. In the end we’d got in some serious water time and long distance, high pressure work. It was a very worthwhile weekend and we all agreed it was a great location and stretch of water – definitely worth doing again.

I’ve written this from my perspective – how about one of the girlies posting their thoughts???

Peterborough

Only a couple of crews out at Peterborough Regatta, both on the Saturday. However, the lack of numbers was made up for by the quality of the rows by the two crews. Although neither crew won, both put in very impressive performances.

First off was the Women’s Senior 4 Coxed Four (Paula, Steph, Lindy and Helen, coxed by me). A tough looking first round draw put us against Twickenham, Leeds and Peterborough. The girls put in a really strong start and at the first push just powered away from the other crews. Peterborough tried hanging on but our ladies were just too strong and eased off towards the end, winning by a couple of lengths. A really impressive row to take them through to the final.

Next up were the Mens Senior 4 Eight – only the second outing for the eight and a couple of changes with Will coming in for Paul and me subbing for Byron (interesting as I was then rowing bow side but normally do stroke). After being caught in a traffic jam going up to the start, we were last on the stake boats and with a strong cross-wind blowing all the coxes were having difficulty lining up. This led to arms going up and down while coxes tried to get straight – inevitably, the umpire lost patience and started the race even though all crews weren’t ready. We started off pointing straight towards the crew in lane 3! After this we were always going to struggle and were soon trailing. A good strong performance saw us gain steadily on CCAT and we finally overtook them with around 200m to go, to finish a creditable third.

On to the final of the Women’s S4 4+ – we lined up against Staines and Peterborough (Cambridge 99 not showing). The start wasn’t quite so good, allowing Staines to get slightly in front and we were to chase them hard all the way. Again, an early push saw off Peterborough but was covered well by Staines; They sat at half a length advantage all the way to around 750 when they started easing away. The ran out winning by around a length and a half but our time of 3:59 was one the ladies can be really proud of. Especially considering this was Lindy’s second ever race and first 1K!

The juniors took advantage of the trailer going up to Peterborough to grab a lift and went out for a long coaching session on the river, covering 22K.

The weather was atrocious but the performances from the two crews really made it worthwhile.

Update: Photos now on-line at mkrc.fotopic.net – I only have photos of the eight – if anyone has photos of the women’s crew in either round, please could I have a copy?

St Neots weekend

I do like St. Neots Regatta weekend!

We had a really good time again this year and came away with a couple of wins, some very close defeats, some storming performances and a much higher club profile. The winning crews were the S3 Quad on the Saturday (with a little help from Star) and the Women’s Novice 4+ on Sunday.

The club had a very large entry this time around and it set a number of firsts and highs. The boat trailer was the fullest we’ve ever taken anywhere, stacked with an eight, three fours, three doubles and three singles, all of which were used over the weekend.

Saturday’s racing:

J15 2x (Curtis and Kieran) – lost in first round

J15 1x (Curtis) – lost in first round

J15 1x (Kieran) – lost in first round

S3 4x (Pierre, Josh, Rob and Steve) – winners!

WS4 4+ (Paula, Steph, Clare and Terri) – lost in final

Vet C 2x (Rob and Steve)

Story of the day was the quad – Erica should have been rowing but didn’t realise she was entered for both days. We found this out about an hour before the race! After much discussion about alternatives, we asked Martin if he could drop in; he wasn’t too keen on this (suffering from hang-over) but did agree. He went off with Steph to sort out the entry and came back to tell us it was all fixed but that we had Josh from Star club instead of Martin. Our opposition (Globe) had kindly agreed to the swap – we promptly repaid them by pulling off a storming start to get ahead of them by the end of the corner, cancelling out their advantage from the stagger, then holding them off all the way to win by two lengths. A hard race as the Globe crew certainly pushed us all the way.

Those of us that were camping over had a great evening, after all, we DID have to christen those pots!

So to Sunday. An early start as we thought we had a 9:03 race in the Quad. In the event, this was against a “status change” that didn’t materialise. Next up were Curtis and John, racing as a J15 2x; considering that John has been rowing for just a couple of months, they put in a good performance, losing out eventually. The Women’s S4 4+ had a bye to their final so next up were Curtis and Kieran, rowing in singles. Curtis went down to a Doncaster sculler but Kieran took his first ever race win, beating a Lea sculler convincingly.Steve and Rob then went out in the Vet C 2x but were well beaten (although using the junior’s HG instead of their usual one probably didn’t help!).

Then came the race of the day. This was an amazingly hard fought and close race between the Womens Novice 4+ against Star. Despite a slow start, our Ladies powered through to take the win by the narrowest of margin – neither crew was sure who had won until the official verdict of MKRC by half a canvas!

The next round of the J15 1x saw Luke put up a very hard race before clipping the mooring rope of a barge which stopped him pretty well and Kieran went out to the same Doncaster sculler that had seen of Curtis earlier. Our S3 4x crew were unable to repeat yesterday’s success, although a crew that is eligible as Vet C is always going to struggle against the Star kids crew….

Our next event was very encouraging, on a number of levels. This was a Men’s S4 8+; the first time I can remember MKRC putting out a Men’s eight in a regatta (may even be the first time ever – anyone know different?) and it included four new members in their first ever races. These guys have been rowing for no more than four months or so, and of the rest of the crew there were two novices, one on zero pints and just one more experienced rower. Given this, they put in a good showing but losing to the Maidstone Invicta crew.

After this, it was the turn of the Novice women, this time against Peterborough. Another really strong performance saw them win convincingly, by two lengths. One of the most surreal moments of the day came at the end, when Steve (cox) told the girls to start winding down, to save themselves for the next race – only to be told by a VERY excited crew that this was the final and they’d won, taking pots and de-novicing! Real congratulations in order here, to Charlene (at last – so many wins in non-qualifiers and near misses), Sadie, Helen and especially Lindy. This was he first ever race, having taken up rowing only around four months ago. This puts her as the new club record holder for fastest to de-novice.

This was a hard act to follow, but the Senior 4 4+ Women came so close to doing so. They had a straight final against Star (again!) and recovered from a slow start to pull up to an agonisingly close defeat by half a length. A good row by Paula, Steph, Clare and Helen and so near to a third club win on the week-end.

Our last entry of the day was another special one. This was the twins, Jordan and Bethany, in a J13 2x. Even more commendable as they only started sculling about three months back – I remember taking them out in Virus boats for their first session! Not surprisingly they lost but a tremendously courageous start!

As I said at the top, a great week-end for the club, with so many highlights:

• largest number of entries in one day
• most boats taken to an event
• biggest age range (J13 – Vet c)
• most first timers (seven!)
• first Men’s Eight in a Regatta
• youngest ever crew
• fastest de-novice

One really nice thing was the positive things being said about us as a club after this showing. After a few low profile turnouts, we really hit this with a bang and impressed a lot of people with the standard and scale of our crews.

Well done to everyone who turned out, including the large number of members who weren’t competing but still came along to support us.

As and when the results are posted on the St. Neots webite, I’ll add a link here.

Update: My photos are now on-line at mkrc.fotopic.net. These are low resolution to save space – if you want a high resolution copy of any of these, let me know. If you’ve got any photos you want to share, I can add these to the site as well.

Splosh!

Training again tonight, again quite good weather. Just as well, as Alex now knows that when told to “hold the boat” while your partner gets in to a double, he means hold it HARD. Not doing so results in a rapid capsize; still, it was warm so we just got on with it. Didn’t do too badly considering it was only Alex’s second time sculling and first time in a double. We even got up to both of us sculling.

The ladies were out in a coxed four, with Oliver coxing for the first time, the senior guys getting in more time in the coxless and a couple of singles.

Finished off with loading the boats for Saturday – nice to see three singles being loaded! These are for the juniors (Curt, Luke and Kieran), so a good turn out for them.

Sunny and no wind – this can’t be a rowing night, surely

What a great evening for training last night. Really bright and sunny (and hot) and virtually a flat calm. It’s amazing how the conditions make you more up for a good training session. We had quite a busy lake, with some serious work being done out there.

There was the Mens’ Coxless Four, carrying on their hard training, gearing up for Henley, the Womens’ Coxed Four that will be racing at Star this week-end, a Novice Eight a double and myself in a single. The Women were certainly pushed through their paces by Clarissa; she’s sussed the crews’ tactics of keeping her chatting at the end of a length, allowing them to drift halfway back. She now makes them back down to get in a full run if she realises what they’re up to. This crew includes Lindy – hard to believe she’s only been rowing three months or so. She already looks the part and is clearly up for the race on Saturday.

The Novice Eight is coming along as well, with five new guys in it. It’s really nice seeing so many new faces (just wonder what’s happened to some of the “old hands” though?).

Jo was out in the double with one of the juniors (“Twin 1″ while “Twin 2″ coxed the Eight) but the heat and being back at school full time after exams exacted its toll…

It was such a nice evening I just enjoyed myself sculling. My hands (and back and legs) are telling me all about it this morning though. Still, all good practice ahead of the week-end.

On that subject, it’s sad to see another local club struggle with their event. After Northampton had to cancel their Regatta due to lack of interest (I believe MKRC were the only club to put in an entry), seeing Star have to cut their event from two days to one is both a shame and quite worrying. Does this show a decline in interest in rowing, people being priced out of events or (worst of all) growing snobbery of clubs not wanting to complete in “small” events? Let me know your thoughts?