Of the women
The first weekend in June and it’s off to Peterborough rowing lake for our first off Cam side by side regatta of the year. The women’s squad had a bumper entry with a Novice Eight and Intermediate 3 Eight entered on the Saturday and Novice Quad and Masters C Coxless Four entered on the Sunday. Both days races were over the full 1000m course.
For many of the Novice Eight it was their first experience of the thrill and nerves of side-by-side racing. They got off to a strong start in their heat then got a bit scrappy in the middle but managed to hang on to second place for a place in the final. The final was more composed, although settling into fourth place they gradually rowed down the crew in front to take a well-earned third place.
Our Intermediate Eight had a tough draw but had a strong race placing third in their heat ahead of City of Cambridge Dev Squad with a time of 3.37, a new club record. Although not making it through to the final the crew were pleased with their result being faster than all the crews in the other heat with the third fastest time overall to Queens’ College W1 and Sudbury.
On Sunday we had our first side-by-side races in “Tishka” our brand new Wintech Quad/Coxless 4. The quad is a new addition to our fleet and we’re therefore relatively new to racing in it. It was our first regatta in the quad and Meg’s first time at steering in a straight line. Good experience that the crew can build on and of course a new club record for the course!
Our last race was the women’s coxless 4 entered into the Masters B/C category. A new crew having had our first outing in a coxless 4 only six weeks previously but we’d had been training consistently with our eyes on entering the British Masters National Championships the week after Peterborough. Katherine was our very experienced steersman but with a new boat and new crew we weren’t sure we’d go in a straight-line. We were up against two Lea RC crews and a Cantabs crew who we’d seen out training too and knew had won recently at the Notts City Masters Regatta. We’d been up against them in the Spring Head to Head where they’d entered in a coxed four, we’d been quicker by 30 seconds but that’s a 4km course with bends and they had a cox so not immediately comparable. We had a decent start and settled into a good rhythm at rate 36, we followed our race plan and could see the two Lea crews behind but had no idea where Cantabs were (definitely not behind!). We were buoyed on by loads of cheering of “Go Chesterton!” from all around the regatta course then at 250m to go we did a push and from the videos it look like we finally got ahead by a canvas. Cantabs, in lane 1, then hit their blades on the bank, we capitalised and pushed out a length for the win. All topped off by loads of girlie whooping at the finish and big smiles for the rest of the day and of course a new club record. Next stop British Masters Champs. Chesterton Women rowing with the Big Girls!
Vidz: Mas B/C.
Of the men
Saturday didn't exactly go to plan. We're a decent crew this year and had come to feel that a place in the final was due to us; sadly an excellent Lea crew, and a pretty good Leeds University crew, put paid to that. Somewhat disappointed, we were cheered to realise that we'd have won the other heat, and that our 3:08.1 matched the "Great Year" of 2013. Meanwhile the Nov 4x- battled valiantly but did not come first.
On Sunday, M2 had entered IM3 rather than masters, which was always going to be a tough row for them, and so it proved. On the day they didn't quite manage to put together the high-quality starts they'd done in practice, and so had to fight from behind, eventually losing by a length.
Keith sculled valiantly into the Rep and pulled out 4:08, but it wasn't enough; too much time on the slide.
But the stars of the day were the IM3 pair of Steven and Conor who competed so hard to pull each other round that they stormed down the course in 3:36, winning both their heat and their final by a considerable margin.
Vidz:
* M1 Saturday riggercam aka "Steve P Cam".
* M2 Sunday coxcam aka "Dave R Cam".
* Steven+Conor 2- heat.
