There was a massive headwind and we took on a huge amount of water in our practice start in the rough conditions. Raf, unfazed, proceeded to bale out using his shoe as we lined up. I was at stroke and was rather too nervous. We started very panicky, trying to rate too high and could not find a decent rhythm in the rough conditions. Raf again came to the rescue by merely stating that the crew next to us 'had had a flier but all the others were out of it'. In fact the time to 500m showed we were 6th!

However, we lengthened out to a much stronger rhythm thereafter and we had recovered to 2nd by 1,000m. A storming row down past Durham in the 3rd quarter took us into the lead and, now settled, we held off a late charge with ease. The pots we got were cool. (Ingram)