Wallingford Regatta 2016

The traditional regatta-season opener at Dorney Lake, Wallingford Regatta, once again proved successful for Thames Rowing Club.

Thames led the way for the third year running in the challenge men’s sweep events, winning all three events entered.

In the morning, an 8 on its almost maiden voyage soaked up the usual fast schoolboy start, cruised through the middle of the race and then decided to put its foot down and motored through in the last quarter to win over a very good Eton crew.

In the afternoon, a fleet of scratch pairs took to the water. Against all expectations, four out of five of them made the final where Harry Dorrance-King and Nick Turnbull emerged from the pack in the later stages for a convincing win. Harry has now won the elite eights, coxless fours and coxless pairs in the last two years. Good work!

The Visitors’ four looked like it would walk its final after the heat times were posted. This was indeed the case as they got open water on Oxford Brookes by about 600m and kept moving out to an eight-second win.

The Club 8 rowed down Agecroft in the heat, but in the final were a bit too excited on the rate and never quite let the boat do enough work for them. Agecroft, all credit to them, fought just as hard and maintained their half-length lead through to the finish. A great race and well fought, but a valuable lesson learned. The B crew, a combination of the 4th and 5th 8s from the head racing season, competed strongly against many clubs’ 1st and 2nd 8s.

The Club 4+ made the final but was slightly outgunned. They rowed well and raced hard but were by far and away the smallest in the field.

The women’s squad opened their spring racing with some very good success. The senior 4+ won challenge coxed fours by a convincing margin of eight seconds over Wallingford RC.

The senior 4- also had a great race. After lying fifth at the 500m mark they rowed a disciplined middle 1000m to finish a close second to Marlow. In the women’s challenge eights Thames finished a credible third to Imperial College and Headington.

The club eight finished sixth in their heat after a close race with Sons and Green Templeton. The club fours had good races finishing fourth and sixth in their heats.

In the sculling events, the senior quad finished a credible fourth in their first outing together. The senior double finished third and Sophie and Meghann finished third and fourth respectively in the challenge single sculls.

The juniors used Wallingford in preparation for the national schools regatta at the end of May. With good racing from all, special mention goes to Chloe Knight and Charlie Ball who won women’s club doubles and came second in women’s junior doubles.