By Laura and Izzy
The first regatta of the season for John O’ Gaunt RC and Lancaster Schools’ RC was horribly windy, beautifully sunny, and full of crashes!! Luckily no damage was done, apart from to the toll booth that Steve managed to break on the way to the race.
First racing was the J13 double with Oliver and Paul. They easily won their heat and quarter final races. Sadly, they lost out on a place in the final by a margin. However they battled it out with Liverpool Victoria in the row off and came third. For their first race, this is a fantastic result especially since Paul only learned to row at the Easter Training Camp! The next to race were the two men’s coxless quads in Im3 in a 3 way straight final. Runcorn won with the two Lancaster crews coming head to head and crashing into each other, after some interesting and unfortunate steering issues. As a result, the “Alrighty Almighty” crew (students and Wilson) were disqualified and Ben’s, Keiran’s, Robin’s and Steve’s crew came second. They came up against each other again in the Novice Challenge race, which the juniors and Steve went on to win. Next up was Dylan, rowing his first race in the J11 single sculls. He came a very decent second place against, especially considering he was racing in the category a year above his age.
The veteran coxless quad raced next, after rowing back because they forgot the all important race number… Very windy conditions made this another difficult race against Warrington and Liverpool. Liverpool were overtaken on the start by Gaunt but pulled back towards the finish to come first with Gaunt coming second. Following this was the women’s novice coxless quad in a straight final against Warrington and Liverpool Vics. The girls had a brilliant start and took the lead. Unfortunately there were some blinders of crabs caught down the course, resulting in one blade disappearing under the boat. However, the girls rowed through this incident and gave a strong finish that they should be proud of. Next were the J15 women’s double with Chloe and Rhianne racing in a tense quarter final against the Grange School. Sadly they missed out on a place in the semi’s by a canvas, but did provide the Grange with some very tough competition. Oliver raced for the second time today, this time in his J13 single. It was a good race between him and the Liverpool sculler but unfortunately Oliver just missed out on a place in the semi finals.
Aaron and Matt raced novice doubles in their first race of the day and won easily, giving Gaunt a second win for the day. W.IM3 4x- saw Laura, Ellie, May, and Amy neck and neck with the opposition off the start. This gave them the confidence to pull away towards the middle of the race, but unfortunately Northwich came back on them and pulled just in front, making it a very close finish. Another tough race for the W.Nov.2x in a 3-way straight final against Warrington and Liverpool Victoria. After a strong, if somewhat panicky start, a blade clash left them neck and neck with Liverpool, who proceeded to push them closer into the big boats, resulting in another blade clash this time and meaning that both crews stopped rowing. This time Liverpool took the advantage in the first few strokes and despite some very fierce rowing and decreasing their lead, Lancaster just couldn’t quite catch them and finished second.
Next Aaron and Matt raced in the double again (IM3 this time). They won. Again.
Ellie was the last competitor of the day racing in J15 novice singles. She had a brilliant start, but sadly the race was restarted. Second time round she was looking strong the whole way through but was blown into the barge, some very nifty steering avoided a collision but sadly she was beaten by a length. In the third place row-off, she won easily by three lengths.
Hopefully the next race will be less windy… despite this it was a good day with the plan for next time being to win more pots!
Note from Boris: this is the third year on the trot that we have won both the Men’s Novice 4x and Men’s Novice 2x at this event!
Comments are closed