25th March The Head of the River Race

25^th March The Head of the River Race

A wholly successful and enjoyable day for the mens Novice 8. With the high start position bequeathed by last years’ crew there was both a promise of a fast time (with the benefit of the stream) and the danger of being dominated by surrounding, experienced crews. The SRC crew excelled themselves by taking advantage of the conditions and holding off all but the most determined of their opponents. Their finish position of 291 is, we think, the highest achieved by a Sudbury Novice crew and was the 1^st Club Novice 8 home.

26^th March Vesta Veterans Head

The Mixed Veteran 8 emerged from hibernation to triumph, once again, this time at Mixed Vet C. They rather turn the old adage on its head, the better they are the younger they get! It will be good to see this formation out more over the summer.

9^th April Bedford Small Boats Head

A substantial contingent attended the spring Bedford fest. We had 55 racing seats with 21 competitors. It was, so far as I can recall, the Club’s most successful trip with 6 wins centred around 2 competitors. Paul COMFORTABLY won both Novice and S4 singles – his best time would have won S3, S2 and would have had him second at S1 by 1 second! Jenny dominated WJ16 1x. Jenny and Paul were, naturally, fastest Mixed Novice 2x, Jenny and Jess won Womens Novice 2x (and would also have won the WJ16 event) and Paul and Sam won Mens N2x from a PCRC crew with pretensions of glory. In addition our S1 pairs matrix was only beaten by one crew and it took very good Novice 3s to beat our Mens groupings (the fastest N 4+ would also have won S4) and our scratch S4 crew was a close up 3^rd in its event. Claire and Sue just held off Alex and Sue in their needle match and everyone who attended got a lot out of it. Oli beat Dan when singling and Dan and Oli together were but 7 seconds slower than Sam and Paul. Especial thanks to Michelle and Anna for bravely going up and down the river all day coxing (even if it was for Maidenhead!) Thus, despite a cold and wet end to the day, a very useful event!