Exciting racing at WEHoRR 2016!

The 2016 Women’s Eights Head of the River Race, which is raced over the University Boat Race course on the Thames Tideway in London, took place on Saturday 5th March. In the days preceding the race, weather forecasts seemed to predict different conditions every time they were consulted, and this variability translated into very changeable weather on race day. Throughout the afternoon, the wind varied between being westerly and northerly, with varying wind-speeds, in addition to intervals with rain, snow and sleet. On Tideway, a wind that is blowing in the opposite direction to the current whips up waves that are rather more dramatic than those on the Cam, so changing wind directions introduce considerable variation in conditions experienced by crews on different part of the course! On this occasion, crews starting low down the start order enjoyed much better conditions than those higher up, and consequentially there were some surprising results. For example, Lea Rowing Club’s Novice E crew finished 3 seconds faster than their senior A crew which contained Henley Women’s Regatta winners and women who had raced for England at the Home International Regatta!

After their club-record-breaking performance in 2015, where they finished 25th overall, Cantabrigian RC’s A crew of Claire Nichols, Jordan Bruce, Ellie Darlington, Alex Courage, Lindsey Tate, Merodie Rose, Georgia Vann and May Perrin had quite a task on their hands. Starting 19th, one place ahead of City of Cambridge A, Esther Momcilovic coxed the crew through a good race in a time of 20:48.0. This time meant they were the fastest Cambridge town crew, over 36 seconds faster than their nearest rivals, finishing a commendable 36th out of 299 crews.

Cantabs’ B crew perhaps had one of the most exciting races of the day. Despite the torrent of hail and sleet which greeted them shortly after the start and the rough water after Barnes Bridge, the crew started strongly. With early gains on Ardingly Rowing Club’s A crew ahead of them, they expected to be able to overtake them in the first third of the race. However, Ardingly put up an impressive fight which resulted in Robert Nimmo coxing Maddie Koesterman, Judith Weik, Hannah Stewart, Hana Lango Allen, Emma Gordon, Eve Beere, Gill Cooper and Sue Hakenbeck through a large section of the race side-by-side with Ardingly, with the battling duo overtaking multiple other crews along the way! Cantabs eventually came out on top, pulling away from Ardingly in the closing stages of the race, and finished in 21:37.7, 94th overall and the fastest Cambridge town second crew.

Making his debut steering the Tideway’s choppy conditions, bends and variable stream, Eric Martin coxed the Cantabs C crew to a club record of 199th despite it being only their fourth time together as a crew. Rowing a solid race, Leanne Fiddian stroked her crew of Sabrina Peoples, Sarah Weaver, Kai Laing, Stephanie Creasey, Sue Waterhouse, Lindsey Askin and Saki Shinoda to a new club record for a C crew, finishing 199th and fastest Cambridge town C crew.

Cambridge News published a write-up of our exploits, and those of the pennant-winning CUWBC crew – stroked by our very own Myriam Goudet – following on from their preview story and photo.

Full results are available at http://wehorr.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/2016-results-time.pdf

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