Henley Rowing Club

Founded 1839

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The National School's Regatta was held in Nottingham from Friday 25th until Sunday 27th May. With nearly 1000 entries from 200 different clubs and schools is the junior regatta of the year. Henley Rowing Club had just short of 50 girls and boys competing over the 3 days of the regatta. Friday racing, for the younger competitors, was over a 1000 metre course. The distance was increased to 2000 metres for Saturday and Sunday. The standard of the rowing in this event is extremely high and competition at all levels is intense. Weather conditions on Friday and Saturday were good but Sunday brought extreme rain and wind. So severe were these conditions that, for some time, it looked as though the event would be cancelled. The Boys and Girls J14 crews rowed determinedly on the Friday reaching the finals in boys and girls double sculls, and the girls coxed quad. Unfortunately, none of these crews were able to turn their qualifying performances into medals. Most events on Saturday started with a time-trial eliminator with the fastest crews progressing to the semi-finals. The fastest two crews in each semi-final went forward to the finals. The Henley boys Championship double sculls of Drew Ford and Alex Walker and the girls J15 coxed quad of Abi Stephens, Lizzie Blair, Gemma Hall, Haley Lloyd and Joe Holmes (cox) both progressed. Drew and Alex easily won their semi-final and went on to take the gold medal in the final in an impressive display of sculling. The girls, however, found themselves in a very tough semi-final and had to dig deep to qualify for the final. The effort told and, after leading in the early stages of the final, the Henley girls were unable to hold on and eventually finished a very creditable third.

For the first time the Club entered a crew in the Girls Championship Eights an event which over the years has been dominated by the school crews. The crew of Alice Skinner, Orla Millar, Raffie Varley, Emily Derrig, Kate Chapman, Pippa Whittaker, Jenny Arnold, Chantal Cummings and cox Joe Holmes where hoping to break this domination after successfully winning the under 16 event last year. The final saw them up against top schools Lady Eleanor Holles, Headington, St Peters, Emanuel and Molsey Rowing Club winners of the junior pennant at this years Women's Eights Head. LEH, Headington and Molsey got out to an early lead with Henley close behind but by a 1000 metres LEH had taken a clear lead with Headington and Molesey level just ahead of Henley and St Peters with Emanuel trailing the field and this is how it remained to the finish. On Sunday the weather conditions for the regatta deteriorated considerably with heavy rain that persisted all day and very strong tail winds producing white horses on the course with many expecting the organisers to cancel the racing. Chantal Cummings competed in the under 16 Single Sculls and coped very well with the conditions in the preliminary rounds to qualify for the semi finals. Where there is a large entry for an event the preliminary rounds are held as a processional race with all crews racing the same lanes. With Sundays difficult conditions this made it fair for all competitors. Based on the draw for the semis Chantal had finished in the top four of the 26 competitors, this put her in the centre lane for the semi final. Stubbs of Canford who has not featured in any of this years top races took an early lead in the sheltered lane 1 with Chantal and Moon of Canterbury another GB candidate taking 2nd a 3rd place in the closing stages Chatal hit a couple of boat stopping waves which allowed Moon to pull through to take the last qualifying place for the finals. Alice Skinner, Orla Millar, Kate Chapman and Emily Derrig took on the top schools again in Championship Coxless fours and after a very difficult semi final which saw them only just qualify for the final. They were very despondent and were not looking forward to the final. The girls however pulled out a very good performance which saw them row through Headington and to catch Molsey but with not quite enough course left to put them in a medal position . In Championship Girls pairs Pippa Whittaker and Jenny Arnold also had a good qualifying race to put them in pole position for their semi final which they dominated to take a relatively comfortable win. In the final four crews remained in contention at the half way stage with Maidenhead in a slight lead from Henley who where not only having to cope with the difficult conditions but also having to avoid the poor steering of Aberdeen Schools who kept encroaching on their lane and back in fourth place in lane 1 was Lady Eleanor Holles. With 250 to go Maidenhead maintained their lead while Henley had finally got just ahead of Aberdeen but LEH came through in the sheltered condition of Lane 1 to split Maidenhead and Henley to take the Silver medal and leave the Henley girls in bronze medal position. In the last event of the day the boys fought a very close battle with Yarm School in the final of the Championship Quad Sculls. With Yarm's time of 6:23:91 and Henley's 6:23:92 at the finish, Henley boys eventually had to settle for the silver medal by the smallest of margins, 100th of a second or the length of the bow ball!

All the crews who competed on Sunday deserved a medal for handling the conditions so well and it says a lot for the improvement in Junior Rowing that only a very few scullers capsised and that the competitors skills allowed the organisers to complete the regatta.

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