About the Club

Trinity Regatta Dublin, 2002

First and Third 'do' Dublin

by Sally Painter, 26th April 2002

Seven women, and seventeen men spent varying proportions of time in Dublin last week partaking in a week of rowing, partying, rowing, sleeping and racing (in no particular order). We were staying in a hostel (used to be the recording studio for U2 and many other Irish bands) in central Dublin, thankfully near the bus stop that was to take us to Blessington Lake an hour or so out of town. Every morning the night porter put out hot rolls and bananas and there was a mad dash for the number 65 bus. Some people slept, others read, some stared out of the window while the tetris ladder was born. Various challenges were made on the top deck, some victories and some obvious flukes. Polms (Palms to all those British born) helped to create a ladder that was replicated in the writing on the windows and the will to reach the top suddenly became apparent as matches were fought and won.

(Some of) the FaT Dublin contingent, pictured outside Trinity College, Dublin

Blessington Lake was basically huge. Turning right out of the boathouse was big enough for a 6 lane 2k course in the summer while turning left stretched for over 20k. Plenty of space for a selection of small boats and yet a sculler still managed to stop two boats and a launch. Andrew Coleman, ex Trinity College Dublin, lightweight sculler and sweep oarsman was in the launch with an assortment of sidekicks operating the video camera with varying degrees of succcess. Simon and Jon joined in the act aswell and took out the spare launch to join in the coaching squad.

Various combinations of crews went out for two outings a day in a variety of weather conditions. Monday was glorious, flat calm, sunny, warm and some people caught the sun. Tuesday was windier with white horses in the middle of the lake; Wednesday was just very very wet while Thursday had such big waves that we had to bail out the boat using our wellies. Luckily some of us got up early to get in some sculling or pairs work and missed the majority of waves before the bus people arrived.

The regatta reception at Trinity College Dublin

Wet outings were very very wet and thankfully the women were left with wellies in their changing rooms and also the use of an electric heater. The disappearance of women during breaks didn't seem to be noticed until the end of the week when the men suddenly cottoned on to the fact that we had gone to huddle round the heater and were thawing out gradually while creating a sauna effect.

Evenings were sociable with a room each taking it in turns to cook for vast numbers of people. Despite the huge quantities of food that were being produced, no one went hungry or suffered ill effects. After dinner most people went out and explored Dublin and Temple Bar whilst samping the local brew. Anyone who can drink Guinness all night and not feel as though they are about to pop from excess filling liquid goes up in my estimation.

Racing in the regatta on the Liffey

By Friday it was time to move to the Liffey so JPD drove the trailer to its new home at Trinity College's boathouse (apparently the first completely concrete bh.....) We spent another sunny day rowing here and practising the course before calling in at the Guinness brewery. The stretch of river to race on was 1.8k long with a weir at the finish, a very strong stream and enough bends to make you very unsure where you were in relation to the crew beside you. The coxes were taken on a grand tour of the course and the buoys that they should on no accounts hit (it lead to instant disqualification). It proved to be worthwhile on Saturday as all our coxes steered faultless lines and managed to avoid all the buoys. The novice men's VIII managed to get through to the next round of racing due to their opposition hitting a buoy and being disqualified despite being x lengths up. They did race despite protests that it was grossly unfair that the obviously better crew should lose on a technicality.

Unfortunately, on race day none of our crews reached the final, bar BPBC's women who managed to avoid racing another crew in the two preceding rounds. The novice home crews had been rowing together for four years and were strong so everyone did admirably to keep the losing margins as small as possible. However, everyone put in good races and the losing margins were respectable, the narrowest being the men's S3 4+ who lost by under a length. Those who were knocked out early consoled themselves with the Pimm's tent and the jazz band instead.

All in all a highly successful week; thanks should go to John for organising us all and to JPD who drove literally hundreds of miles to provide us all with boats and food from Tescos. Maybe Blessington will see First and Third again?

There are some pictures taken during the trip in the photo gallery.