Bedford Quarts 2009

Another regatta, another win for the Women. Despite losing Lindy (back to Zimbabwe for a holiday), the Women’s squad showed their strength in depth as Paula stepped in to win another event. They had to do this the hard way, being the only crew of the five in their category that had to row three times. First up were Star Club – a good start and the first push saw our crew well clear and able to sit on Star through to the end, winning by three lengths. The second round pitted them against Bedford; a poor start this time saw the girls behind but a hard push saw them row clean through Bedford, this time to win by a length and a three quarters. Their opponents in the final were Broxbourne; again, a strong start saw them pull away steadily (despite being hit by a huge gust of wind by the weir) to run out overall winners, this time by two lengths.
A hugely well deserved win, to take home those huge Bedford Quart pots plus a point all round.

Our other crews didn’t do as well, though. Steve and I were totally outclassed in the double being beaten easily by Cambridge. Although de-novicing at Peterborough was great, my extra point now puts us at IM2 if there’s no Vet events and we just aren’t up to that level.

The Quad also lost, this time by one length to Lincoln. This despite it being a fairly scrappy row with a new line up – Pierre-Yves was away, so Tim stepped in (for his first competitive row for MKRC) at two with me moving to stroke.

Results are on-line at Bedford RC site and my photos at the MKRC fotopic site

Star Regatta 2009

It’s that time of year with events coming thick and fast. This week-end saw us competing at two separate events, the local Star Regatta on both the Saturday and Sunday and, for the first time, the National Veteran’s Regatta on Sunday (new post to follow).

Star Regatta saw four wins over week-end, two on each day. Showing a major step up, three of these were from the Junior squad.

Saturday

Both of today’s victories came courtesy of the Junior squad, with wins in the J17 1x and J17 4x- categories. The only two (disappointing turnout) senior crews both lost their straight finals. Steve and I lost (at IM2 2x-) to two huge “kids” from St. Paul’s School, by seven seconds (which we thought wasn’t bad as we were about three times thier age!) while Paul and Nick lost out to a very strong Star boat in the IM2 2- category.

As well as the Junior wins, John also managed to capsize while leading his final, having won two rounds to get there!

Sunday

The wins today came from Salv at J17 1x and the Mixed IM3 4+ crew. Again, far more junior boats out today (although us Vets were up at Nottingham). The Mixed crew was almost the ultimate “scratch” crew; two of the crew had never met before, they had to borrow blades (thanks Nicky at Star for sorting this out) and use three seats from the Junior’s quad plus one borrowed from Bedford School! Still despite this, they clearly gelled as a crew and dominated their final to pick up the nice Star medals.

Results already on-line at Star Club

Star Head 2007

Not a terribly successful day in terms of wins but some really good outings from MKRC crews. In the first division, we had a Mens’ Senior 3 4+ crew (Paymon Daneshpay, Raymond Hughes, Will Jordan and Graham Targett, coxed by Clarissa) and a Womens’ Senior 3 4+ crew (Charlene Mills, Karen Wilson, Paula Heywood and Steph Heywood, coxed by Becks Trouse); both crews had good rows but boy was it cold when they’d finished. No crews in Division Two but Division Three saw the Mens’ Senior 4 4+ crew going (Graham Targett, Steve Iles, Will Jordan and Rob Heywood, cosed by Becks Trouse); we were happy with our row, setting what we thought was a pretty good time of 6:09 (especially as Graham and Will had rowed before and Will had switched sides!). In the Fourth and final Division we had the Womens’ S3 4X (Paula Heywood, Charlene Mills, Steph Heywood and Karen Wilson), taking part in their first competitive event and another first with Will’s twin sisters Florrie and Kate in their first ever event at WJ15 2x. A few problems with the quad, with them unintentionally impeding a Star Club 4+ crew (fortunately, the Star crew still went on to win their category – especially as daughter/sister Jo was stroking this boat) but the twins did really well, steering a great line down the course – the first time ever on a river! In the end, no wins but a good (albeit cold) day out. Thanks as ever to Steve Iles for towing and being there all day.