The Club's Results

A good first race for the crew. We arrived at the start to find a crew of frankly huge ARU boys in a racing shell - not ideal. But we knew from sparring that we had a good start and the paddle down had been solid, so what the hell, we thought we might as well try and give them a scare.

The crew was very focussed on the line, and the start was excellent. We did well to hold them at half a length for the first twenty strokes, after which they gradually increased their margin. The boys didn't give up, and the race was going smoothly at a solid rate 31 when the velcro of Edmund's footplate gave up the ghost. We paddled on valiantly in sixes but by this stage they were stringing out their winning margin and even back in eights we had little chance of any proper recovery. (Emma)

They knew we were coming. (Emma)

We had more confidence after our good row in the first round and were ready to take on Emmanuel. Still missing a footplate at seven, we nevertheless lined up on the start ready for a big race.

The start was our best yet, giving us four seats in the first fifteen strokes. But we failed to get the rate down to anything more sustainable and never found the smoothness of our earlier work at rate 32. Whether from tiredness (in the forearms as much as the legs!) or just from teh shock of finding ourselves in the winning position, we never quite got it together and Emma gradually moved away. A good last thirty strokes wasn't enough, and they crossed the line about a length and a half ahead.

Overall we had a really great day's racing and i'm very proud of the achievements of the crew. These were tough, committed races against serious opposition. Training starts tomorrow for the Getting on Race... (Emma)