Henley Rowing Club crews continued a successful regatta season with three wins at Wallingford Regatta last Sunday. As has been the case for the last few years Wallingford Regatta is held on the Eton College multi lane course at Dorney. Whilst early morning fog threatened to delay the regatta this was soon burnt off by the sun to leave good conditions for racing over the 1500 metre course.

The first win of the day came from the girls J16 double of Caitlin Bennett and Natalie Macintosh who despite a slow start in their final slowly overhauled the other crews to take the lead by half way and then powered home to a two length victory over Molesey Schools with local rivals Marlow and Upper Thames in third and fourth place respectively.

The men’s squad where successful in reaching the finals of Elite eights, Elite coxless fours and Elite coxed fours but where narrowly beaten in each of these by crews from London Rowing Club. The verdict in each was less than a few seconds and shows the squad to be up there with the top crews.

The Junior 18 girls quad got off to a good start in their final and at half way were leading the other six crews but in the last 250 metres where overtaken by Latymer Upper School who went on to win by three seconds.

The boys J15 quad of Simon Jones, Drew Ford, Chris Clarke, Peter Wagner and cox Mat Jones reached their final with a comfortable semi final win but then gave the regatta one of the most exciting races in the final when the verdict could only be decided by reference to the finish video. This fortunately showed that the Henley boys had won, just crossing the line in front of Windsor Boys School but with the third place crew some 17 seconds behind. The boys then went on to notch up a second win in J16 coxless quads. Despite having moved up an age group the boys actually won this straight six boat final quite comfortably with a six second margin over second placed Molesey Schools.

This was a successful regatta for the club but it was unfortunate that a number of other club crews where unable to compete because the regatta was over subscribed with some 900 entries being received against a limit of 600.