Abingdon Head - 22nd April 2007

After an early morning gathering at GRC, the minibus and trailer headed off to Abingdon Head for what is one of the last head races before the regatta season starts. After a few navigational hiccups, due to Hugh’s Sat Nav, we duly arrived in good time and set to rigging the boats.

Only two crews were competing from Guildford; the Senior Men competing at S1 4+ (although they are only S2 on paper) and the Senior Women in the WS4 4+. The course at Abingdon is 2000m upstream with an “S” bend in between two straights. Almost a longer version of Guildford’s stretch of river, just bigger!

The Women weren’t too far off the winning pace for their category, and the winning time for WS3 4+ and ahead of the sole WS2 4+ crew. The Men were however a little less pleased with their time following problems with a troublesome pair during the “S” bend.

	Status	Time		Crew	Position in class	Name
21	S1 4+	07:39	+00:22	50	2/2	H Johnson, W Austen, N Mills, T Mattos, H Seymour
79	WS4 4+	09:03	+00:04	59	2/3	S Boys, L Flaherty, H Lyons, J Mears-Mason, J Sadler

With Wallingford Regatta already fully subscribed, Marlow Spring will probably be one of the first regattas to get results back from over the Spring Bank Holiday then the Seniors will be off to Shrewsbury for the weekend of 12th and 13th May for a weekend packed full of racing. Watch out for news from these and other events over the next few weeks.

 

STOP PRESS

Surrey University’s coach has had the pleasure of getting up and close with the river this week with two trips into the water from his bike on consecutive nights.

A lesson to us all – always bring a change of kit, as you never know when you will need one.