Norwich Head

Norwich head; or: Chesterton men leave the Cam for the first time in yonks.

GPS traces: short course; long course. Draw. I made a copy of the results here.

This is a quick post written well in arrears, just for the records.

We had a 4-, in divs 2 (short) and 3 (long); and the Dev VIII in div 3. We were the only 4- I think so had no chance for a pot. The 4- came 4th in div 2 in 7:20; and 7th in div 3 in 21:53. The VIII got 23:17.

Train to Norwich, walk station to rowing club (about 40 mins) we were trailered by… Champs?… and weren’t on till div 2 so didn’t have to get up too early. Due to the wet, wellies were needed for a 50 m stretch of the approach track, and the river edge itself was under water, but that wasn’t problematic. The club is good, there’s a lovely boathouse with wide views and nice cakes. The short course is in the into town upstream direction; the long is out of town. My, how I remember burning with anger when Dan stroked us at 30 all those years ago; I knew we should have upped the rate. Post races: into town to The Belgian Monk for food and drink. Train home.

Oh, who were we?

Long course 4-: Chris Wood (Stroke); Harry Bulstrode; Klaus Okkenhaug; William Connolley (Steer).

Short Course 4-: Ralph Hancock; Me; Dave Richards; Simon Emmings (Steer).

VIII: Cox: Simon. Stroke: Mihai, Dave, Joned, Jon, Owen, Nils, Chris Lloyd, Alex Caz.

We also went to Norwich in 2011: club blog post; my personal one.

Winter Head 2023

The Cantabs Winter head was a bright sunny day, which was just as well as there was a certain amount of waiting around marshalling. Full results are on RowClock: our men, Tramontana, was 9:54 raw and 9:39.1 as MasC; the women SuperHoops 4x 12:18.3 and 11:27.3 as MasE; and in Dawntreader 12:04.7 and 0:11:32.7 as MasD. We didn’t win (though the men were the fastest master’s VIII and would have won club B, had we entered it…).

CRA town bumps 2023

And so the pinnacle of the rowing season arrives: town bumps. This year Chesterton has seven crews: three women’s and four men’s, with M4 being the Christ’s Staff, coached by Kate.

Day’s reports in last-first order.

Overall: M1 +1; M2 -2; M3 +2; M4 -1. W1 -3; W2 -3; W3 -3. M3 win the “captain’s blades” prize.

Day 5

Briefly: M1 row-over (vid); M2 technical row-over (vid); M3 row-over (vid); M4 row-over. W1 down (vid), W2 down (vid), W3 nearly up, but alas down (vid).

And then we went to the Waterman and then we went to City. And some of us did silly things.

M1: another good row (GPS) and indeed the GPS has our pratice start at just fractionally under 1:19. And my nerves at least had settled. But nonetheless, somehow, we didn’t hit peak form and the race while good wasn’t good enough; we didn’t get so close to Xpress tonight. Perhaps seeing Nines 3 taken out by City 3 down the Reach removed a certain motivation. But: we’re up one for the week, and the crew was a pleasure to row in.

Day 4 (M4 doesn’t row)

Briefly: M1 (vid) and M2 (vid) row-over; M3 (vid) up; W1 (vid) and W2 down; W3 (vid) row-over.

Day 3 (M3/W3 don’t row)

Briefly: M1 row-over; M2 down; M4 down; W1 and W2 row-over.

M1: (GPS; vid): new practice start record (just over 1:19). Decent real start, the first whistle took longer than last night but the cries of “inside station” from the bank were audible. City 2 bumped out on Nines 2 at Grassy, we closed to half a length around Ditton, probably got overlap down the Reach but not consistently, and alas didn’t manage to close them down. It was quite bouncy. Tomorrow, perhaps, with wash ahead of them too we’ll get the small relative boost required. Elsewhere, City took out Nines for headship.

Day 2 (M2/W2 don’t row)

Briefly: M1 up, M3 and M4 row-over; W3 and W1 down.

M1: (GPS): Excellent paddle down and start (1:20); decent real start and a looong wait for a whistle (entering the Gut I think) then two then three down Plough reach and I think we got a better Ditton and had overlap coming out to bumps at the top of the Reach. Scarily close at First Post / very finely steered by Will. Bumped: Tabs 3, Hills Road. Behind us, as far as I could see, I think Mallory closed on Nines 3 quite quickly to maybe FP, then faded, and were off by Ditton. Ahead, City 2 got Xpress so bring on Wednesday. Vid from Paddock.

Day 1 (M1/W1 don’t row)

Briefly: M4 row-over; M3 up, after a heroic chase of Nines 9 (watch it here!); M2 down, alas, when half a length off Nines 6, caught by the Rad in the gut (vid). W3 and W2 both down.

Time race 2023

We entered four crews: M1 (“Bodger”), M4 (“Badger”), W1 (“Ladies”) and W3 (“W3”), achieving respectively 4:58 (#2 behind City), 6:49 (#23), 6:10 (#14) and 6:57 (#28).

There was a fair headwind so the times don’t really compare to 2022. And I’ve updated my spreadsheet of results here.

M1 was ChesterExKings, featuring four of the ExKings/Henley bois in the stern followed by our finest in the bows (Shuowang, Ali, Tobias, Kozzy, Ralph, Harry, Jon, William). It was our second outing (and the first with that exact line-up) and we felt pleased with our row. M4 is the Christ’s staff, who Kate has been coaching.

British Rowing masters championships

Our (Ladies) Spring training culminated in masters racing in fours. To keep us all focussed after the Tideway races the captains decided to concentrate on 4s rowing, this allowed us to train and race in age specific crews.

We took 3 crews: B 4-; B 4+; and a F 4+.

After sterling work on the trailer WhatsApp group, Rachel managed to get us space on the Xpress trailer for Tishka and Spare Rib and off we went.

It was a glorious day for racing, sunny, warm and not too windy (well for Nottingham anyway).

The 4- had a morning race and the crew was Catherine steering, Manja at 3, Natalie at 2 and Eszter stroking. They started well and held off Putney Town A right to the end.

The F 4+ crew was coxed by Rachel and stroked by Anne followed by Jo, Shonu and Karen. They got no time advantage for being over 10 years older than at least half the other crews. Despite being 19 seconds slower than the crew in front of them they were 22 seconds faster than the crew behind. It was a good race with great commitment throughout from the crew. This was also Rachel’s first time coxing a regatta and getting on a stake boat - not that you could tell as she acted like a complete pro.

In the penultimate race of the day we had the B 4+ crew, coxed by Manja with Masha at stroke, Kaisa at 2, Louise at 3 and Beccy at bow. For the bow pair it was their first taste of regatta racing, and I’m sure not their last.

Everyone really enjoyed their first or first-in-a-long-time regatta racing and felt with some more racing we’d do even better - we can’t wait to enter our next regatta.

It was also great to spend time together and enjoy the sunshine and hopefully the work put in will help the bumps crews.

Awayday at Ely

On a brilliantly sunny weekend in May, Chesterton women’s squad packed up two 8s, a 4+ and a 4-, slathered on the suncream and went for our annual away day in Ely. We were armed with rigger jiggers and we meant business. The goal: have an absolutely fantastic day on the river, with a cheeky bring and share lunch thrown in there too because we’re all pretty civilised around here.

The day started off strong with seat racing, pitting the two 8s against each other in snappy sprints over a short course, which definitely helped shake the cobwebs off! Competitive spirit took hold with spirited discussion about whether one boat might have had a small head start against the other. I couldn’t possibly comment of course.

After another outing, with some splitting into smaller boats this time, we regrouped at the boat house for the Main Event. There’s no doubt Chesterton women can row, but I’d like to take a moment to acknowledge we can put together a rather fine lunch too! There was couscous, quinoa, sausage rolls, vegetarian sushi, Bundt cake and a tray of deliciously gooey brownies, among many other tasty treats.

The final outing of the day was another opportunity for an eight and the small boats to head out on the river. Conditions all day were excellent, if a little choppy on the water, which gave us all a good opportunity to focus on balancing through each stroke, moving as one and working on those piston legs that have been the concentration of our recent coaching.

All in all it was a really fun day hanging out with some awesome rowing nerds. Special shout out to Catherine, Natalie and Jo for organising the day and Eszther for coordinating lunch!

11/10, would recommend – see you all in Ely next year!

Head of the Cam 2023

The Head of the Cam, your perfect entree to summer rowing, is now open for entries. Please see https://www.chestertonrowingclub.org/head-of-the-cam for details.

And now time has passed and its all over for another year. Some pix are available here; about crews 1-10 for each division, as I had to rush back to give out numbers for subsequent divisions.

Fastest overall and fastest men: Corpus / Selwyn composite; fastest women: Cantabs Senior Women.

Women's Winter Race Report Summary

WeHorr 

We were really happy to get a D Masters crew out and finish 6/8 in our category and 31 crews rowed slower than us:). Next year we will aim for a higher position.

WL 3

All 4 boats raced in all legs so well done for consistent participation! All crews showed improvement through the season which is really good to see.

8+ Club B

They finished 4/10 although only 5 crews managed to do all 3 legs. I think that is an excellent result in a competitive category and a real testament to this crew.

8+ Masters C 

They won their category of 4, although again only 2 crews did all 3 legs

4x Novice

They bravely fought off all competition (who failed to turn up) to finish first in their category.

4x D/E 

Won their category because they turned up to leg 3 

Vesta Vets

We did really well to get to London and race, our final substitution was on Saturday morning.we had 2 crew members from Xpress (thanks Janki) and had had zero outings together. Not surprisingly we were not particularly competitive, but it was a good experience.