Summer seems now like a distant memory! Frost has been sighted on landing stages, the swallows are long gone and the tufted ducks have taken up their winter positions.
The previous week saw huge numbers of crews piling into Henley for the Henley Sculler’s Head. This involves lots of boats taking to the river, much jostling on landing stages and no rowing for local crews unless they are racing. As a considerate group whom did not want to show up other crews we manned the landing stages, timed every crew we could see and made plenty of bacon sandwiches. Cake was also devoured with great enthusiasm.
On the Sunday afterwards a very nice group requested a cox for Veteran Fours Head. Being someone of impeccable taste the cox insisted on taking them out first before agreeing to the race, but was so impressed by how seriously the crew took its natural history that there was simply no possible way to refuse such an offer.
Race day came around rather quickly. The previous day the Fours Head had been battling its way along the Tideway. With a good wind and plenty of rain the conditions had made it less than pleasant. Typically though for us the sky cleared and the wind dropped. On arrival at Putney Town Rowing Club we piled out of a car and went to greet the boat which some kind body had driven up for us.
On assembling the boat (righty tighty, lefty loosey – cox is still to get the hang of this one) it was noticed that some plonker had left part of one of the backstays behind in Henley. As a crew that takes health and safety very seriously we started debating on the best approach to such a difficult issue. Wrenches were obtained, several backstays donated by a very accommodating Putney Town and the stern pair entered into a lengthy engineering enterprise to fix the problem. The end result was eventually achieved by the use of a vice, screwdrivers, WD40, gaffer tape, a hacksaw and any other tools we could reasonably find. With a splinted backstay, boat and cox box we plodded off to find the river.
Boat from Putney Town is very different to boating from Henley. The steps down to the river are steep, covered in silt off the Thames and there are no handy pontoons to get you started. So we slithered down (applauded by some lovely locals as we went) and started the usual chaos of getting into a boat. Bow had very kindly provided some very smart wellies for the ladies, three had purchased a new shiny pair, stroke however chose to wear sandals and was surprised when he got no sympathy for wet feet. The difficulty for us was now not having a friendly bank party to grab hold of wellies and put out of the way of the tide. Especially as cox was unable to remove said wellies unaided. Putney Town rose to the occasion again – gallantly collecting footwear and putting them out of the Thames’ reach. Pushing us off with a ‘have a good row’ it felt like home from home.
The journey up to the start was uneventful – we respectfully passed several other crews, giving way to ones we liked the look of, ignoring the ones we objected to. The river was flat and calm, the wind dropped and whilst it seemed to be a very long bit of river we eventually reached the marshaling positions.There is a certain skill in staying in the same place on a tidal river. It is a skill that is being developed by a large number of crews, and whilst some have the knack of doing very small gentle movements others find it more of a challenge.
Boats had started to go past – the race was well under way and we pottered up to the start. Marshals were barking orders, crews were making an interesting job of turning and there was general carnage which suddenly (on a quick spin) turned into a nice line of boats, all in the right order and facing the correct way.
Paddling up to the start stroke noticed the boat behind winding up stroke rate and pressure. Needless to say cox missed the start totally (there is no useful sign saying START or if there was it wasn’t noticed) and so on the approach to Hammersmith had it not been for stroke taking the lead we would probably have been overtaken.
A local crew (IM3) were ahead of us to start with, so we followed their line up to Hammesmith, (cox totally getting the right lamppost) after which a spurt of excellent power drew us level. Motivated by this we shot past with a heart warming speech about valour and comradeship from cox. The long straight from Hammersmith to Barnes gave us a very nice stretch to settle into a good rhythm which took us all by surprise. As a result getting to Barnes Bridge took less time than we expected. Past the next bridge (Chiswick) we stormed into the finish line, even managing a bit of an extra push towards the end. No one overtook us, we had reached the finish – what more could we ask? And our host club was about 50m away!
A lovely chap who had pushed us off dashed off to get the wellies for us and after a bit of fumbling around (it is very difficult to get out of a boat and into wellies) we were back on dry land. The Thames had kindly risen up by several feet, so we had fewer steps to carry the boat, less mud to get on the nice wellies and a shorter distance to carry the boat.
After a quick de-rig (the taped up backstay still in place!) we flopped into the Putney Town boat house bar with tea and flapjacks. iPhones were out in force – what was our time? Did we beat the ladies? The crew we had over taken had a respectable time and we had finished before them! According to the website however we ‘Did Not Start’ much to our horror – we certainly had started and finished! After a large amount more tea and flapjack we headed for home – back in Henley for 2pm, just in time for an afternoon snooze. An excellent day out, fantastic row and hopefully soon we will be in possession of a very good time for the race!
MastersofHenley 