Competition for Henley Women’s Regatta

Thursday evening was a bright and sunny one. The wind had dropped and the sky was clear. Junior crews were all over the landing stages, leaping energetically into boats, enthusiastically charging up and down the river with much shouting. Being a very sedate and sensible crew we let them get out the way before piling into the eight, hoping that they would have got far enough away so that we wouldn’t have to steer around them when we would inevitably catch them up. 

The crew were delighted to be out again, especially as the circulation pattern of the river had changed, giving us a chance to charge up the regatta course without having to be on the wrong side of the river. Seeing Temple Island from the wrong side always feels totally wrong, especially when there aren’t any geese on it. The most serious crews were spinning just beyond the island, joining an enormous queue to pass the start and then practice racing starts and the like. Ignoring all this, we admired a bit of technique from the visiting crews and made our way past the practice area. Past the end of the buoys the river was empty except for the odd goose and a heron.

After a spot of admiring the scenery we shot back to the regatta start hoping to find every other crew had gone and that the coast would be clear for us to charge down the course which we regard to be ours. Sadly though other crews seemed to think that they should also be there and so we had to join the long line of boats to use the start. Having a quick wriggle through the random things that HRR seems to think essential to the running of a regatta we settled into the starting positions and then enthusiastically took off in a manner that any competitor at HRR would have been proud of.

As we were so fast going back up to the finish we caught up with the two crews that had started at least 20 seconds before us. We even had to slow down through the Regatta enclosure due to the slowness of the crews in front.

Cheering ourselves on to the finish we overtook a few stationary crews before the bridge and then pottered back to the club to find another queue waiting for landing stages. The very polite juniors did not jump the queue when they joined it,  and so after at least two minutes of waiting we crossed the river (trying to avoid getting the way of launches and other boats).

The most traumatic event of the outing was when we came back to the landing stages. A small family of ducks (both parents and three tiny ducklings, whom were less than a three days old according to 7) got trapped between the landing stage and the oncoming boat. After a few desperate attempts by the parents to prevent disaster they abandoned their offspring and flew off, leaving three tiny ducklings running on the water in a vain attempt to escape. Cox tried to tell the ducklings the best route to freedom but no notice was taken. Inches from squashed duckling stroke side managed to raise blades in time with bow side holding the boat up hard. After such a trying outing the only thing we could reasonably do was pile into the bar. Sitting out on the balcony with wine and beer was an excellent way to end the outing, discussion then turned to the next row, namely the best one of the year.

Midsummer row at 4am.