Nottingham City and Masters and Club Regattas and National Schools Regatta – an “eventful” weekend for Rob Roy Juniors!

by | Jun 3, 2018 | Racing | 0 comments

The Nottingham weekend was all about mountainous seas and survival. Bad enough on Saturday but by Sunday the organisers decided that, rather than cancel the regatta, they would stage all the events at the far end of the course where the water was slightly calmer. Which meant not only that Elizabeth, Lara and Elana in their first races in singles had to negotiate waves breaking over their boats even as they pushed off from the pontoons, but that Ella and Matt, racing twice in two nearly consecutive categories straight after each other, had to sprint through the heaving water to get back to the start in time for their second race.

The organisers forgot that they’d arranged for Matt to do this – so set his race off without him and one of his fellow competitors and then had to schedule an extra race for the two of them (winning Matt a well-deserved medal!). We had a re-start for Priya and Maddie due to a flock of geese interrupting the crews; another re-start for the WJ16 quad due to dreadful steering by one of their competitors off the start; we accidentally tested the ‘self-inflate’ properties of Ella’s life-jacket when she was coxing the WJ14 quad – and discovered that it could self-inflate enough to prevent her from breathing; and, while Sam had an unplanned visit to A+E, Kos, still hot and sweaty from racing in the quad, had to jump into his seat and race in the 2X with Luke. Throughout all these adventures, all our crews performed superbly and have brought home some excellent results: SATURDAY (2000m) 4th for the WJ18 4X- Flora/Bunty/Lauren/Freya (racing as Seniors against top university crews) 5th for the J16 4X- Tommy/Ollie/Dylan/Kos (also racing as Seniors against top university crews) 1st for J18 2X Luke/Kos 2nd for J18 2X Ben/Matteo SUNDAY (1000m) 3rd for WJ17 1X Freya 3rd for J15 1X Matt 1st for WJ141X Ella 4th for WJ14 1X Lara 5th for WJ14 1X Elizabeth 1st for J14 1X Matt 1st for WJ13 1X Ella 2nd for WJ13 1X Elana 2nd for W2X Freya/Bunty (racing as Seniors) 4th for WJ15 2X Priya/Maddie  3rd for WJ14 2X Chloe/Mariko