Several crews from Tay Rowing Club headed up to Inverness on the weekend of 8–9 November to take part in the Fours and Small Boats Heads. It was fantastic to see our members representing Tay on the water — and they did us proud with strong performances across the board. Here are the race reports…
Mix Mas 2x
Paige has timing for boating down to a science so we only had a short wait at the start, in pleasant sunshine too! We were in a masters division and all the other crews had handicaps, so we needed to put water between us and them to have a chance of placing well.
We went through the build and started quite comfortably. Our division was sent off after a pairs category, and we passed a good number of them. Overtaking boats is encouraging, but what really mattered was how much space we opened up with the crew behind us.
Paige made good motivational calls and comments through the race. I think the only thing I said was “no”, Paige had just asked if we had rate 30 in us but rate 28 seemed like plenty to me.
We finished in good time, but were 2 seconds short of the win after the time-deductions. Well, 1.8 seconds, but who’s counting? It was great fun, I hope to try it again in March.
O Nov 4+
You really don’t know what you’re going to get when you enter a novice category. Well, we got 3 uni crews and an ASRA crew – a tough category.
We set off second to last, with the ASRA crew behind us. This turned out to be great. We had a similar pace, so we had a good visual of how we were doing through the race. If we opened up water between us and them, we knew we were doing well. If they got closer, we knew that we needed to put a little more in.
Around half way through, two of the uni crews collided (or so Clemmie says, we didn’t see anything). We passed one of the uni crews shortly after. They got DQ’d later… but the overtake still counts!
We finished in about 20:23, 20 seconds behind the ASRA boat. It was a really enjoyable race. We’re looking forward to getting out again at Aberdeen!
W Masters Novice 4+
We’d heard a lot about Inverness events and wondered why everyone is so keen to go up there. Aha – a long stretch of perfect rowing water, nicely sheltered and with no tides and currents to deal with. Our rowing objective was fairly simple; we had agreed to “empty the tank” by the end of the race.
In terms of results, we fully expect to come last and are ecstatic if we don’t! Clemmie got us well organised and positioned comfortably in the bank to wait for the start, amongst an array of scullers. A Strathclyde Park crew were behind us and we had expected them to overtake so were not put off too much when that happened. The row was solid and there was definitely nothing left at the end, so Clemmie had got all the right calls in and pushed us hard to stay in touch with the Aberdeen crew in front.
The end couldn’t come soon enough as the last 10 strokes were a total meltdown with the confusion of a lost seat, a crab and who knows what else in a major unravelling (there is video footage but it’s not for sharing). Tanks were well and truly empty, mission accomplished.
A review of Monica’s garmin stats showed we were able to complete the race with a stable pace and stroke rate through the race distance and a 7m average distance per stroke, which is more than we have done in training. Reflections at the end were positive (Emma: “I think we did alright”) and we were very happy with a 3rd out of 4. The author notes being in a state of flat battery for the next 4 days.
Technique, balance and many other things to work on but sometimes it’s just about proving you’ve still got the fighting spirit to put yourself out there and give it a go. Well done to the whole crew and especially Clemmie who has given up many hours to try and get our rowing improved. Many thanks to the Old Slapper boat wranglers and transporters, rigger fixers and for all the help and encouragement from the Tay club members and their entourages.
