It was a cold misty morning when the JOG trailer left Halton Army camp for Chester with 2 quad boats and a single for a seniors outing on the River Dee competing in the Dee Autumn Head hosted by Grosvenor Rowing club. Karen Tidswell (accompanied by Scott Houghton for reassurance) drove the trailer with a van very kindly lent to us by Martin Gray who we are still waiting to see on the River Lune this year. First out onto the River Dee racing in the first division was the MasD 4x- quad of Simon Wetherall, Simon Milligan, David Dunk and Richie Smith. They had 3 other boats in their category and despite some difficult navigational moments where head racing etiquette seemed to have evaporated much like the earlier mist, the quad rowed really well to come 2nd in their category with a time of 15.35.2 for the 4km course losing out to a crew from Bradford. Once off the water and suitably recovered with hot tea/coffee and home made cake, they very kindly rigged the quad for the ladies.
The WMasB 4x- comprised of the recently made up crew Stephanie Sodero, Karen Tidswell, Clare Egan and Lorna Sullivan. Unfortunately for the women, Stephanie was not very well but,suitably drugged up with Lemsip, deemed herself able to race. ( Not sure if Lemsip has any performance enhancing qualities?) Scott Houghton was also racing in the second division in his single in the IM3 1x category.
The ladies’ crew did not have any other crews in their category so were racing for a time only. However there were 3 other crews racing in the WMasD/E 4x- category so they were hoping to get a comparable time. Scott had 2 other boats in his category.
Once started, the women’s crew were fairly quickly overtaken by both the WMasD/E 4x- crew from Grosvenor and City of Sheffield, both of whom appeared to have crew that looked twice the size of the Lancaster boat! Nevertheless, they maintained a steady pace throughout the 4km course brilliantly navigated by Lorna ( who had recently been dragged out of rowing ‘retirement’) and achieved a time of 16.54. This was in spite of the fact that this was only the fourth time that the Lancaster crew had rowed together.
Scott was left to start quite a way down the field and managed a time of 18.19.4 coming third in his category.
Whilst there were no wins, we all had a very enjoyable day in Chester and it was encouraging to see a good turn out from the senior section of the club, the ladies section of which is developing rapidly and hoping to get more crews out racing in the future.
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