Springtime Red Rose - Sat. March 29th 2014

It was a very pleasant Spring morning down on the river bank at Halton Training Camp. It was also very busy when we started arriving from 08:45-09:15. A Royal Marine convoy of various heavy duty vehicles and equipment had arrived the day before and was just departing en route for Scotland. In addition, a squad of cadets was marching back and forth.

DY had organised a big group of boys to compete in this Red Rose event and boys were expected to row twice, if possible, in both Divisions. He had some extra juggling of crews to do at the last minute but it all worked out well. A J14 octuple in both Divisions was a first for the event. LUBC and JOG crews were somewhere in the fleet of boats.

J14 Octuple (8x+)

The J16 4x- A of J.Mapp, A.Fyfe, D.Kingcox, and O.Tiddswell led the charge, racing up the river from John O'Gaunt boat house to just below the Motorway bridge. On the return leg, there was an unusual easterly and warmish tail wind pushing the boats back with the stream.

A brief pause after Div 1

Once boats returned, there was not much time to recover before swapping crews and boats and heading off again for the 2nd Division. It was good to see the octuple in action. The stern section was boosted by having the J14 boys who had raced at York a fortnight ago. Their experience helped the bow four. For some boys, it was their first experience of a race.

Off again, for Div 2 (J16 4x-B)

The J16 4x- A crew came out as the overall winners based on handicapped time with M.Ashall in his 1x finishing second overall. Well done to all crews for some good racing. As soon as I get the 'official' results, I will post them here. It was great to see J14 parents coming down to support. The squad is developing well.

Many thanks to DY for organising the crews and to RGT, Ciro and our latest helper, Radu (a trainee teacher & rower from Romania), for giving up their Saturday morning so that the boys could race.

Has anyone got any photos of the start/ finish area? Thanks to Mr.Gelder for supplying photos. I will try and put some more up here later.

Results. Note that the ranking is based on a handicap which is based on age,sex, boat type.

I must admit that I have not been through the calculations myself to get to these ranks!