Caris Marsh reports on wins at Wallingford, Metropolitan and Reading Regattas:
“HAWK!”*
The aptly named Wallingford Regatta (held at Dorney Lake, over 25 miles east of Wallingford itself) always attracts stiff competition and this year was no exception.
The OUWLRC team consisted of just four determined athletes (Rose, Baines, Felicity and Caris) and one miniature being with an enlarged cranium (Becky). Together they made up “hawk-four”.
The team competed in both the WS3 and WS4 coxed fours. Three Heats. One Final. No second chances.
First up, WS3. This was a learning curve. After an average row in an extremely fast heat and very narrowly missing out on qualifying for the final, the four decided that it was time to stop nearly winning and start actually winning.
Round 2, WS4. The four picked up the place and qualified for the final (in a time that would have easily won the S3 event) going on to a convincing win, despite a marginal amount of protest from a Vesta crew in the first 1000m of the race.
*no hawks were either harmed or alarmed as a result of “hawk-four’s” awesome rhythm. We think.
‘The Dawn of a New Era’ at Metropolitan Regatta
The Saturday of Met was a sad day. This would be the last time that “hawk-four” would row together this season. The four produced some decent performances, narrowly missing out on the final of WS3 4+.
Sarah Cornick and Linda Reynard raced their singles in the WS3 1x category. This was also the first racing for two newly formed Dev Squad eights.
Sunday saw the dawn of a new era, the era of the composite eight. This particular combination consisted of four of the 4 members of ‘hawk-four’ (Caris, Felicity, Baines and Becky), the ex-pres/Taylornator (Katie) and 4 members of OUWBC (Phoebe, Harriet, Katja and Lucy). The eight started their reign as they meant to go on, dominating the WS3 8+ event.
Domination, Round 2
Reading Amateur Regatta (RAR) is not held at Dorney Lake, but the competition is still stiff as a board.
Despite being a two day event, we felt that our presence was only required for one day. Today’s combination was minus Baines, Lucy and Katja, and plus Rose, Emily (OUWBC) and Hannah Seddon (our awesome dev-squadder).
It was side-by-side racing with two in each heat (awesome practice for Henley) and despite being shattered from a week of hard training the crew managed to clock good times in four out of four races. The eight won the first three races comfortably to make it into the final where they met with Vesta’s revamped and rejuvenated eight. At the end of the race the Oxford composite eight came through victorious, winning by a margin of just three-feet.
Sarah Cornick was also there, in her trusty single, sculling away, like a sculling daemon.