HORR and Veterans Head

Sunday 24 March saw three crews from Sudbury compete in the Masters Head of The River Race on the Thames and the club achieved fantastic results.

This is the same course as the Boat Race in reverse, starting at Chiswick Bridge and finishing at Putney.

The weather and rowing conditions on the Thames were decent. There was a stiff tailwind for most of the course which made for an enjoyable row in the late afternoon sunshine.

Despite the lack of any recent competition due to rain cancelling all of the planned practice events, our crews had been training hard for the last 6 months in the lead up to the head race and were well prepared.

The club achieved two fantastic wins in the Novice 8 categories for both the women and the men.

The winning women’s novice 8 crew of (L-R) Linda Newbigging (bow); Clare Mashford 4; Jen Ward 7; Stephen Nichols; (cox) Sophie Lovegrove (stroke); Jess Brown 2; Michelle Hurd 5; Teresa Moriarty 3; Amanda Ashton 6.

The women’s novice 8+ won their event by the biggest margin of the day, a very substantial 1 minute 3.7 seconds and in a time of 21:48.3

The winning open novice 8 crew of (L-R)Tom Bryant 5; James Durance 2; Brendan Flynn 6; Victoria Burgess; (cox) Roland Cheeseman (bow); Kevin Fish 4; Paul Shipton 3; Mark Todd 2; Tom Day (stroke).

The men’s open novice 8+ won their race in an impressive time of 20:05.2 beating the rest of their field by 52 seconds.

These crews are now the proud recipients of tankards and pennants.

The men‘s masters E crew of (L-R) Lee Adams 6; Trevor Chambers (stroke); Paul Adams 7; John Bowles 2; Keith Paxman (bow); Andrew Blitt 4; Charles Howard 3; Tim Hysom 5; Ella Hysom. (cox)

The men’s open masters E crew also rowed well and finished with a good time of 20:50.

All crews rowed hard and really enjoyed their races.

Massive congratulations to all our crews competing and a big thank you to all the friends and family who came to cheer us along!

The HoRR men’s eight of Cox Amelia Moule, Stroke Lewis Craig, 7 Byron Bullen, 6 Harry Moule, 5 Nick George, 4 Henry Tullin, 3 Martha Bullen, 2 Brendan Flynn, Bow Rory Fildes.

The Saturday saw our men’s head crew take part in the Head of the River Race. They also had a fantastic row, finishing in a time of 19:01.

This placed them 142nd overall out of 400 crews, which for a small club is an exceptional performance.

All of the competing crews over the head race weekend put in performances they were proud of. As a club we achieved fantastic and very promising results heading into regatta season!

...and we’re in the British Rowing newsletter.