22^nd-23^rd July – St.Neots

Many competitive crews from SRC at this event. The mens squads came together to field both an S3 and S2 8 on both days, though with mixed fortunes. The Saturday S2 crew beat Cygnet to progress to their final in which they met Star crew whose quality eventually proved too good. Sunday’s version of S2 was just 2 feet to slow to win the last race of the day. At S3 the crews did not fare quite as well – Saturday’s crew under-performing (by their own account) in losing to Leicester and Sunday’s 8 suffering a comically effective crab whilst leading a semi against eventual event winners Star.

Sunday also saw the debut of Helen and Louisa as a Womens Novice Double scull who were perhaps unlucky enough to face the eventual winners, Newark, in their first race. Our other double scull for the weekend consisted of serial winners Paul and Jenny at Mixed S4. The standard here was really pretty good and the Final proved a very tight affair with the Simoco/Magdalene combo leading by feet until 2 strokes from the finish line where a spectacular crab castled them, allowing the SRC crew to fly past and win by 1.5 lengths.

Jenny competed at WS4 in a 5 boat field. This was an appropriate level of competition for her and her opponents gave her a good fight in each round, but Jenny eventually won her final, and her 1^st Senior point, by 1 length.

Our other entrants at this regatta, Dan and Oli, faced fields of 12 and 13 respectively. At it turned out each of Dan’s races was close and well-fought, with Dan losing only by a few seconds in the Final (and to the Captain of Broxbourne RC, who then went on to win S4 1x on the Sunday – why did he not attend our regatta??) . Oli’s progress was altogether more serene and it was a great pleasure to see him romp home in the Final by 4 lengths.